Survivor's Guilt
by AnAuthorByAnyOtherName
Summary: The sequel to Acts of Mercy. When Marcy and Denver are separated by the military, the two must use their wits and skills to survive and find eachother once again. Can Marcy escape the lab she's confined to? Can Denver conceal his true nature from other survivors? Challenges are faced, enemies are made, friends are found in strange places, and, above all, guilt is considered.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer #1:**

I dunno if any of you hotshots over at Valve are reading this (O hai Gaben!) but please note that I am a poor bastard who has nothing better to do than to write fanfiction. I highly doubt that anyone will offer me money for this, so please do not sue me in all of your Valve omnipotency. I am only writing my interpretation of the storyline of _Left 4 Dead_ and _Left 4 Dead 2_ , and do not claim ownership, or copyright/marketability over any characters owned/created by Valve Studios, mentioned in this story. Again, any and all OC's on this story are of my own creation, and I only ask that proper credentials be given if you use them in another fanfic/fanart/etc.

 **Disclaimer #2:**

This is a sequel that has very little to do with _Left 4 Dead_.

For the uninformed, this is the continuation of my first story, _Acts of Mercy_ , which is a totally awesome story, honest, go read it and write a review for me.

For the informed, this is the long-awaited sequel that you (hopefully) have been clamoring at for... 3 years. Huh. That's a while.

I suppose I can say that I've been running on Valve time, but that's no excuse.

Anyways, it's here. I'll be updating weekly this time, so sit back and enjoy the story that has (further) driven me to madness. Read it, review it, and keep watching.

* * *

 **Prologue**

 **Savannah, Georgia: October 22, 2009**

The smell of burning city filled the air.

There were screams; the screams of timber falling, buildings crumbling, of metal twisting from the heat, bent into forms it was never intended to take.

And there were screams of... _other_ things, cries that drifted from the city and mixed with the smoke.

 _Certainly no humans_ , the soldier reflected, from his safe spot off the shore. _They'd all been evac'd out, right?_

Only things on fire in there were buildings and monsters, he thought, their wailing rising to the sky with the ashes.

 _Burn em' all and scrub the world clean,_ he figured, _do them and us both a favor._

"They're bombing the place after they torch it, you know," said the soldier's companion, gazing over the flickering, orange-tinted sea. The first soldier shrugged.

"Let 'em."

"Pity about the mall," sighed the second soldier. "Heard Jimmy Gibbs Jr. was doing an appearance before the 'flu hit."

The first soldier shook his head. "Damn shame. You think he got out alright?"

"Eh, celebrities are always the first ones out," the second man said, waving it away. "Heh. Probably hightailed out in that racecar of his."

"Yeah."

There was silence between them, and the sounds of fire, screams, and water hitting the sides of the boat filled the gap, for a time being.

Then:

"Y'know..."

"Yeah?"

"You think there might be..somebody in there? Still in Savannah, alive?"

There was a pregnant pause.

"Nothin' worth saving, Al.

Nothin' worth saving."

* * *

? ? ? ? ? ?, Ohio

"Russ?"

"What is it, Skip?"

"Maybe we can take a shortcut."

" _What_?"

"Y'know, off the beaten path."

"No."

"Look, I know it's crazy, but… hear me out. It's hitting dark. And the last thing we need is to trip over a Witch or something because we can't damn well see what's in front of us."

"I know, but…"

'C'mon, bro! We need to get to the safehouse. It's just an alley."

"Don't _bro_ me. I know perfectly goddamn well we need to get to a safehouse. It's just-"

"What?"

"Something about it… something in my gut tells me it's not a good idea. We should stick to the plan."

"Plan, schpam. We don't have any time. And your gut? Really? What now, old man, are you getting holy revelations in that bean-stuffed stomach of yours?"

"Ok, _old man_ is going a little far, it's only 5 years between us!"

"Whatever, oldster. Let's just take it as it comes. It'll cut it in half,and Eve n' Trav can't go for much longer. We've kicked zombie ass before. It should be a no-brainer."

"… Fine."

"I knew you'd come to your senses!"

"...That back-slap wasn't necessary."

"Totally was. And you know what? If something jumps us, we'll just fill it with lead. Watch out for eachother, deal with whatever they throw at us…"

'We just need to be careful, Skip."

"Russ, it's an _alley_ , ferChrissakes. We'll be out and in the saferoom before ya know it!"

"If you say so..."

"It'll be fine, What's the worst that could happen?"

* * *

 **? ? ? ? ?, ? ? ? ? ? ?, ? ? ?**

There was nothing but pain.

Blinding, burning, twisting, and even flowering, almost, if the thing feeling it could think poetically. But it was always _there_.

It wasn't sure where it was. Sometimes voices spoke over it, far-off, and sometimes to it, but it could only scream in response.

It only huddled in the corner of the white room, while the voices spoke.

Sometimes they could come, with biting little sticks, putting things in its arms that only made it burn even more, holding square things and wearing white coats and always, always watching.

Some dim little part of its mind would spark, occasionally, somehow fighting back. and it would say, quietly, over the pain,

 _I didn't sign up for this._

 _Why?_


	2. 1: The Art of Not Knowing Anything

There are some weird stories out there, and there are _weird_ stories out there.

Not not weird ain't bad. Frankly, I prefer weird to the other paths of life.

Take my dad, fr'instance.

Most dads can be boring at best, embarrassing at worst. I think dad basically went the whole way and turned up all the knobs to 11. I dunno which knobs it was he turned up, whether they were labeled _crazy_ , _irrational_ , _loving_ , maybe even _embarrassing_ , but, whatever they were, by God, he turned them up, all the way, until they snapped off and got stuck to the setting they were on, which was the Max.

Not that I minded. Like I said, I prefer weird to anything else. Building a nuclear fallout shelter in the middle of the Northern Maine woods, for the sake of building a fallout shelter in the middle of the Northern Maine woods, certainly doesn't fit within the parameters of _normal_ , but who am I to complain? It ended up saving my life, more than once. (It wasn't due to nuclear fallout, I'll tell you that much.)

And then there's Denver, for that matter.

It's not like his weirdness is defined by his name. Sure, _Denver_ is a pretty damn odd thing to name a kid, but I'd like to think that whoever his parents were named him something more everyday and sensible, and less taken-from-the-torn-and-bloody-sweatshirt-he-was-wearing-at-the-time. Nope, the name _Denver_ was fairly normal compared to the rest of it.

His tendency to chase ground squirrels (or anything small, squeaky, and susceptible to running in terror) was less _weird_ and more _unnerving_. Mostly this was because he would _actually catch them_.

Oh, sure, he'd be stealthy about it, and he didn't scream when he pounced anymore (which does the nerves a favor) so he'd would get them nearly every time, and he could usually get at them quickly if they ran, even when they went down burrows.

He'd let them go afterwards, too, 'cos he said that they left a bad taste in his mouth. He'd only really do it to burn excess energy, in any case, or else he bounced off the walls and drove me nuts. Really, though it was pretty odd to see him going after 'em, I preferred him chasing squirrels, and not people.

He'd still get nightmares from that, poor bastard. Sometimes he'd grow in his sleep, and I'd get a chill down my back and watch him, carefully, and wish fervently that the sunnuvabitches in the CEDA hadn't taken my gun.

But then he'd wake up, and while he'd be terrified out of his mind, he'd still be sane, and not woken up as the monster he used to be.

I highly doubt either one of us would like to repeat the time he woke up (sort of) and wasn't sane, but the past is the past, I suppose. He's alright now, which I reckon is what counts.

Well, as sane as a former zombie could get. Chasing squirrels is just the tip of the iceberg.

His claws, for another thing.

Gatling called them 'keratin-enforced ossified fibrous appendages' (whatever the hell _that_ meant) but no matter what he called them, they weren't going anywhere. Den would sharpen them against trees, but they kept regenerating. Whatever the the hell Green Flu did to his system messed it up in ways only God knows.

Like how he could jump to the roof of a building, in one go, or how he could smell me opening an MRE from across the building, or the way he could make his way across a pitch-dark room without a flashlight.

Or the fact that he tried to kill me.

Twice.

Granted, he'd been under the influence of a raging virus that that not only badly mutated his eyes and and legs and hands and nose, but his mind as well. And, also granted, I'd been trying to kill him at the same time. (Mostly because he was trying to kill me, but what's a girl gonna do?)

Three times. I'm one over him on that, though the fact that I nearly succeeded the third time makes it all the more unsettling, to both me and him, but mostly me.

That fact that _he_ nearly succeeded unnerves him (more than me, I think) as well.

We both avoid the topic as much as possible. Imminent death at eachother's hands doesn't make for fantastic small talk, or any sort of talk for that matter. We've settled it, and we really prefer not to dig up any skeletons that probably need to stay buried.

Call him a monster, if you want. I certainly would have, had you told me about him, just two months ago. Then I would've sent you to a mental hospital, because only a complete _nut_ could make up a story like that.

And yet here we are.

Is he a monster? By traditional conventions, certainly. Personally, I think that he's a whole lot less monstrous than most men I've met, though sometimes I get the nagging doubts in my head.

Is he my friend, despite this?

Hell's Bells, yes.

You could ask me why on earth I could be friends with someone who nearly tore my internal organs out, or that I nearly shot in the head because of the aforementioned internal-organ tearing, or who I had to teach to tie his shoes because of a virus that ate his brain. (And half of the country, for that matter.)

And yet I am.

You could also wonder why he'd still stick around with _me_ , someone who taught him to drink from a cup , and who was the (technically indirect) reason for him getting his leg caught in a bear-trap. (Long story.)

And yet he does.

Maybe ours is the weirdest story of them all.

But, again, it's not like I have anything against weird.

* * *

Despite all the weirdness. the past month'd been oddly...normal.

Filled with burning resentment, yes, and revenge-plotting, and some more resentment, and soul-crushing boredom when the resentment ran out, but filled with normality.

As normal as being a guinea pig/blood bank/backup/research subject for the government can be.

We spent most of our time reading whatever they throw at us (mostly army propaganda, but I'd take anything at this point) and spying on the whitecoats. They'd pretty much put us in entire barracks of an off-use military base (Now being repurposed as a research facility/prison/what was probably closest to _home sweet home_ in a 50 mile radius)

The resentment part comes mostly from the guinea pig part, since the only reason they're keeping me around at this point is because of some antibody related crap that's currently running through my veins. Why the hell they haven't found another person in the goddamn country that's immune to the 'flu at this point is beyond me, but apparently carriers aren't good for anything but spreading the disease around, so the whole reason the world hasn't gone to hell (yet) is because of my life juices.

Whoop-dee-fucking-doo.

And of course, they can't have me going around and spilling/misplacing/generally not being there to donate said life juices, so, here I am, in Middle of Nowhere, Arizona, transferred from Middle of Nowhere, Canada, after being transported from Bear Cave, Middle of Nowhere, Maine.

(Long story. Go read it.)

At this point, nowhere sounds like a place to go.

I suppose I should be thankful for the security, being in a nice facility with (fairly) livable cots and running water and slightly fresher MRE's than I'm used to, as opposed to being torn apart by zombies. (Or pummeled, or strangled, or burned in acid… did I mentioned how fucked up the Green flu is?) ' _May you have interesting times_ ' is a curse, after all.

Still, it'd be nicer to have normality on my own accounts.

Though it wasn't that much of a change of state. Just a month ago, I was counting MRE's and assuming anarchy was ruling the country. Now, it's more or less the same thing, but with them drawing blood from me at regular intervals (Again: Whoop-dee-fucking-doo) and less MRE'S.

Anyways, here we are now, sitting in what was formerly a common room in the barracks, on a couch that isn't so much Hideous or Floral, and more a Nauseating Army Green. Denver is napping in his own, weird way (which is to say, curled up like a dog. Don't ask. I don't know why, and neither does he.) and I'm re-reading the _Green Beret Survival Manual_ for the umpteenth time. I've practically memorized the entire thing since I first read it at the age of 7, but, hey, gotta go back to old favorites. right? I'd tried to read it to Denver, but he rather felt more like a power nap at the time.

Apparently his ridiculous metabolism ( 4,000 calories a day, or something stupid) was because he:

 **a)** Could heal a broken leg in a couple of weeks (apparently because of 'accelerated cellular replication, enhanced telomere length' blah, blah, science makes my head hurt)

 **b)** Could leap a building in a single bound (Well, if it was a _short_ building. And if he wasn't too tired.)

 **c)** Kept a temperature of about 103°F and a pulse of 120 (Which gave the doctors a damn good scare the first time they took his readings)

 **d)** Ate like and slept like a bear, if that bear was also Olympic swimmer on Lunesta.

Which is to say, maybe times _were_ interesting enough with him around.

Now he was waking up (surprising, I know) and stretching, like a cat (Again, don't ask. Even Gatling's baffled, and Gatling is seldom baffled).

He still kept his hood up, which he claimed was because it kept the sun out of his eyes, but I think he did it out of habit, and keep people from staring. Who can blame him? Every sonuvabitch whitecoat that sees him, first thing they gawk at are his eye scars. They are pretty damn impressive, but you'd think that someone'd get tired of people asking. ('Specially considering he'd made the scars himself. Like I said, long story. Read it.)

Anyways, he was up and at it, blinking muzzily and glancing around the room, I suppose to make sure it was still the same room as when he went to sleep. (Which, again, you can't blame him for. Let's just say waking up in the same room as we went to sleep in is a pleasant surprise nowadays.)

"Mornin', lazy bones," I said, while I halfheartedly skimmed the section on smoke signals. "You've been out a good two hours."

He shook his head. "Only two? Wish it was longer."

I glanced up. "Bored?"

"Just hate this place," He said, flopping back on the couch. "Maybe if I sleep more-"

"We're here shorter?" I finished for him. He nodded.

I grimaced. "Hate to pick apart your logic, but I'm having my doubts on whether they're _ever_ gonna let us go."

He heaved a sigh. "I'm just sick of it. Sitting around, chasing squirrels, waiting for something to happen-"

I shrugged, trying to hide the same resentment I held. "You did that at The Cabin, too."

"Yeah, but at least I was there because I wanted to." He paused.

"And because there wasn't anywhere else to go." He added, quietly.

"Not like there's anywhere else for us to go around here, either." I said, gesturing around the room. "Nothin' but desert around us, and unless we manage to hijack a chopper, burn the place down, and fly our asses out of here, it looks like we're stayin'."

He seemed to ponder this for a moment.

"Well, maybe if we-"

I shook my head. "Prospect's tempting, I know, but security's too tight around 'em. I wouldn't risk it."

He sighed again. "We can't fly one, anyway."

I smirked. " _You_ can't. _I_ can."

"Really?"

"Yeah." I paused, thoughtfully. "Dad believed in a... _well rounded_ education."

"Well rounded?"

"Covering all aspects." I defined for him. Den's vocab had increased exponentially over the past several weeks, though he still had a few fuzzy spots here and there.

"Well rounded as I am though, ain't gonna do us much good," I sighed. "It's not like we have anywhere else to go, even if we got past the desert."

"Back to the Cabin? He asked, hopefully.

I shook my head again. "No can do. It's under custody, remember?"

"Oh. Yeah." He looked crestfallen then, which depressed me even more.

"Suppose this ain't _too_ terrible," I reflected. "They leave us alone, and it's either this or zombie territory."

"Zombie territory can't be that bad."

"Considering the state you were in when I found you? I doubt it."

"We could survive."

"We could." I said mulling it over. "Question is, what's worse? Zombies, or whitecoats?"

"Well, they get mad when I attack the whitecoats."

I snorted. "True. That, and zombies don't go on rants about government funding."

He shrugged. "Maybe we can try and go Westside-"

"I doubt it." I cut in. "Even if we manage to escape, they've got CEDA posts all over the borders, now that they've managed to get their act together. Even if we stay out of their sight, we can't mingle with society, not with _those_ on your hands." I said, gesturing to his claws.

He gaze darkened, and he looked down. A pang of guilt stabbed at my chest.

"Look-" I said, biting my lip as I tried to phrase it.

"We can't go and live with normal people, not until we've built up some sort of trust. You're as human as they come, trust me, but…" I paused again.  
"People won't stop and think that. If they find out what you are, exactly, well, the reception ain't gonna be real friendly. Old hate dies hard, and fear runs deep. They won't stop and think. They'll just act. That's what I did, and I can't blame 'em for doing the same." I swallowed.

"But if anything happened to you, I'd never be able to forgive myself."

He seemed to mull over it for a moment. "Yeah." He said, finally. His voice was heavy, almost resigned. "You think we'll ever get out of here?"

I stared past him, at the wall, not willing to speculate the possibilities.

"I don't know."

* * *

 _Denver_

I scare myself.

Sometimes I'm running. Chasing something small and squeaky, because my legs itch and it only goes away when I chase. Sometimes I'm sleeping, or Mar is reading something to be, and then the noises in my head come back.

The smell of blood. Screaming, Yelling. Falling. Hurt. Burning.

Then I wake up feeling hot and smelling salty, and I don't know here I am or who I am or _what_ I am, and I have to think to know that I am Dever, I am _here_ , and not there, where I was, and I will never hurt anyone again.

And my head hurts and sometimes my hands hurt, and my eyes sting, and I wait for it to go away, and go back to sleep or chasing things or listening to Marcy, until the noises come back again.

Sometimes it isn't yelling or screaming, but nice noises, noises that I know but I don't really.

 _Den, I'm home._

And even though they're nice noises, they make me even more sad. But I don't hear them very much. Just every now and then.

And sometimes my head will be quiet, and I like that the most, because then it doesn't hurt, and I know I am me, and nothing else tells me that I'm not. And that's all I want to be.

Me.


	3. 2: Rooftop Thoughts

_Jump._

 _Roll._

 _Jump again._

 _Good place here. For seeing and smelling. Lots of smells. Smoke, blood, sick…_

 _High up. High up is good._

 _Smelly sick ones are wandering around. Down low. Very stupid. Run at prey. Get killed by prey. Killed with smoke-things._

 _Wait. Wait up high. Smell prey. Watch prey. Wait. For when prey isn't looking. Don't get killed by prey._

 _I kill the prey._

 _Some coming now. 3 of them. Smelly-stupids run and yell at them. Prey hits them with the smoke things._

 _One is away from the others. Being pulled by rope-thing from Sick-Smoke one. Other prey is being run at by Stupid-Smelly-Ones. Can't help the other one._

 _Growl._

 _Now._

 _Jump._

 _Scream._

 _Air making rush-noise when I pounce. Makes my face cold. Claws out._

 _Land._

 _Cracking sound when I hit prey. Rope-thing isn't dragging anymore._

 _Mine._

 _Rip._

 _Tear._

 _Claw._

 _Bite._

 _Oh God! Getitoffgetitoffgetitoff_

 _KILL_

I wake up.

All of me feels cold. Sweating, but I'm not hot. I shake.

I can still hear the screams.

I can still remember the smells…

Breathe. Hard. My chest goes thunk-thunk-thunk, like it does when I run or jump for a long time, but I wasn't running or jumping.

Well, I don't think I was.

I roll off the bed.

It's dark, but I can see. Marcy is sleeping, and I don't want to wake her up.

I go outside. The air is cold, and dark. Veryverydark. Lots of little dots stars in the sky. Marcy says it's because there isn't any light to block them out. There were lots of them at The Cabin, too, but they looked different.

Jump. The I'm on the roof.

Noises. Little noises. The ones that are always in my head. Too quiet for me to hear. Some of them are louder than others, and they are the ones that make me sick.

Breathe deep again. Lay back. The roof feels cold. Stop the noises. Make my chest quiet down, make the sick go away.

I watch the stars, and sometimes I think I see them move, very, very slowly.

I hear the door slam open and shut. Then a _tk-tk-tk-tk_ on the wall, since Marcy needs a ladder, and she sits down next to me.

"You really need to quit havin' the midnight terrors, man. It ain't healthy for a body to be up this damn early."

She says it like she's mad, but she isn't. I know she's worried. I can hear it and smell it a little, too, under the sleepiness.

"What was it this time?"

I shrug. "Same things. Screams. All the smells. Stuff I don't want to remember."

"Your head doesn't seem to be getting the memo."

"Hm."

"Anything... useful?"

I shake my head. "No. "

"Damn." she says, quietly. She turns over and looks at me. "Ya wanna talk it out, or anythin' ?"

I shrug. "Nah."

I know I'm lying, because after we sit and look at the stars and all the desert and the base for a while, I start to ask what I've been thinking for a long time.

"Am I-"

"No."

I turn back to her. "You really think?"

She sighs. "I can see it in your face. You're not a monster, if you want full reassurances."

"Really?"

She looks at me, a little annoyed. "Would I lie to you about this sorta shit?"

I think for a little. "Maybe."

She punches me in the arm, hard, and it makes my breath go _oof,_ but she doesn't smell mad. "Wrong in one."

"Why?" I ask, my head and my arm burning together, now.

"Why what?"

" _I've killed people, Marcy._ " I say, looking straight at her. Her face doesn't change, but I can smell the sad off of her. "I know I did. You said I had blood on me when you found me. I don't think it was all mine. I remember…" _Ripping, screaming, taste of blood, the hunt…_ "I remember it. And I almost..."

 _I almost killed you._

She nods. "I'm well aware."

"But doesn't it mean that-"

"What did I tell you earlier?"

Her voice is hard, and so are her eyes. "I don't particularly like to repeat myself."

The she sighs, and some of the hardness goes away. "Look, angstin' over it ain't gonna change what happened. You can only change what you do in the future."

"Yeah?"

"Yep."

"Right." I say. "I'm never killing, ever again." _I won't make the same mistakes, cause the same pain-_

"Bad idea."

"Huh?"

She shakes her head, and smells a little confused. "What's the quote Whit told me- 'Only the devil deals in absolutes.' Yeah, somethin' like that. Point is, going hard the other way ain't gonna fix anythin', either. You never know what's gonna happen, who you'll have to defend… sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do."

I stay quiet, thinking. _Like the bear, but what if I lose control? What if I do something stupid?_

She glances over to me. "Y'know, I killed a guy before I met ya?"

"Yeah?"

She sighs. "Just an infected. Came stumblin' at me, arm just bit, turned not three minutes later." She looks off at the sky, and I don't know what she's thinking.

"His name was Max."

Then she turns back to me. "I was thinking bright n' clear, Denver. I did what I had to do. He could've been an asshole, he could've had a family. I don't know.." She shrugs. "I bet his corpse is rotting away in the gas station I shot him in. People shouldn't have to die that way," she says, shaking her head. "Shot through the head in a goddamn gas station…

"But it's what happened. I couldn't have prevented it, not without killin' someone else, me included. It is how it is, and I don't let it keep me up at night." She smirks. "Well, unless there's someone else doing the favor."

"Sorry."

" 's OK." She says. "You've been through some shit. I reckon you get a free pass."

"Yeah..." I clench my teeth. "But you don't think it makes me... dangerous? Uncontrollable?"

"A man is defined by his own decisions. " she says. "Your intentions don't mean shit, it all boils down to what you do of your own volition. Er, free will." She says when she sees my face.

"What I mean to say is, you're only a monster if you decide to be one. The Green Flu… it took that out of your hands. You weren't thinking straight, and it isn't your fault that you got infected. All you can do now is move forward."

"And not kill people?"

"Just…" she stops and thinks. "Use your common sense. I know you have some bangin' around in your head somewhere."

"You think?"

"Yeah." she says, nodding. "I do,"

I unclench my jaw. The noises are screaming at me, still, but they're a little quieter.

"Thanks."

"No problem." she says, swinging her feet off the roof.

"Just try and get some damn sleep, hey?"

* * *

 _Marcy_

The whitecoats seemed… _agitated_ the next day.

They were always around the base during the day, it being a research lab, but they didn't really interact with Denver or me that much. Most of the time, their attitude seemed to veer from general disinterest to fascinated terror, like we were some sort of horribly deadly, incredibly rare, recently-discovered species of pit scorpion.

This was fairly close to the truth, so this suited me just fine. Any day when the whitecoats leave us be is a good day in my book.

They were pretty damn annoying, I'll tell ya, never answering any questions. On any other given day they'd either give some science-shit explanation that I couldn't follow, or just drop a dismissive comment. Today, however, they seemed to be deliberately avoiding us, which was a fairly nice break from them taking blood samples all the time, if a little disconcerting.

And suspicious.

"There's somethin' going on." I muttered, watching them skitter around from our spot on the roof. Besides being a good place for angst-pep-talk time, it made a convenient vantage spot for watching people.

Denver shrugged. "They keep whispering at each other. I can't get close enough to hear, but they smell… scared. Confused."

"That ain't good." I said, mostly to myself. "I'm in good mind to throw a tomato at 'em."

"I could jump one of them." Denver offered, grinning evilly. I smirked.

"Temping, but you know what happened _last_ time you did that."

"It was fun to hear them scream."

"Y'know, for all the regret n' crap you claim to have, I could swear you still a streak of zombie in ya."

"Whitecoats don't count. You said it yourself. They don't treat _us_ like people, anyways."

"True." I said. "They don't." I sighed. "Save it for Gatling, in any case."

"He hasn't been around for awhile," Den said, eyeing the scientists warily.

"Which is what worries me." I said, following his gaze.

"I thought you didn't like him."

"Still don't." I said. "But at least he was a constant, when he was still around. Something's going on if the leader of the joint just vanishes into thin air. 'Sides," I glanced over, "I thought _you_ were the one that said he 'smelled trustworthy.'" I teased.

"He didn't kill me. And the nose doesn't lie." Denver replied, simply.

"He didn't kill you because you were an 'object of scientific interest'. Besides, who am I to trust the olfactory senses of someone who's medically brain-damaged?"

"Hey!"

"I'm kidding." I laughed. Denver _hmphed_ and crossed his arms, grumpily.

"Nose or not, I still don't trust him." I said, tone serious again. "Like Uncle Whit used to say, somethin' here is going catawampus."

"You keep talking about your Uncle Whit." Denver said, cutting off my train of thought. "What happened to him? Were you close?"

I sucked at my teeth, trying to word the answer. "Fairly." I said, to start. "He was my dad's older brother, really the only other relative I knew. Grew up and lived in Georgia, the both of them, and me, till Dad moved up North to live closer to the cabin. Even after we moved, they were still pretty close. We used to go to Savannah every Thanksgiving, talk about weaponry and all that. He'd let me handle the guns from his store, even shoot some of 'em." I smiled at the memory; my first sniper rifle, learning how to mount a laser sight, packing magazines on an M16 Carbine automatic...ah, good times. "I fired my first gun ever on his range. It was a .22 Browning A-Bolt. Manual. I managed to jam it the first time, but good ol' Whit helped me fix it."

"What happened?" Denver asked, breaking my train of thought. "You said you used to go to Savannah."

I sighed. "It was when I was, I dunno, 12." I shook my head, sadly. "Dad and Whitaker... got into an argument. Dad said lighting out to the North was a better idea during the nuclear apocalypse, but Whit said that stayin' home and holing up was the way to go. Told Dad that his obsession with the Cabin was 'unhealthy'… they were rantin' for _hours_." I shuddered at the memory, me waiting on the stairs next to the kitchen, while the two of them shouted…

"Long story short, Dad broke off all ties, and never spoke to Whit again. After he died, I didn't really keep up contact, so who knows? I know the flu's hit Georgia, but Whit's tough enough, he mighta survived…"

"Wait, wait." Denver cut in. "Your dad refused to talk your uncle for years over an argument on _survival strategy_?"

I nodded. "Yep. Big issue for them. Really, Dad thought Whit was crazy for wanting to stay and wait it out. I dunno how he's doing after the Green Flu." I glanced out over the horizon, to the east. I almost fancied I heard a rocket launcher.

"Good ol' Whit." I said. "I hope he's doin' OK."

* * *

Later on, it was just us in our cots in the old barracks, and all the whitecoats had shut up and gone home for the day.

"I hope Gatling gets back soon." I said, idly looking up at the ceiling, as I tried to fall asleep. "Longer he's gone, the longer we're here."

"Do you think we'll be here forever?" I heard, from the next cot over.

I shrugged. "Who knows? We stay here as long as Gatling wants us to." _Which may damn well be forever_ , I added, if only in my head.

"Maybe we _should_ burn the place down, like you said." Denver mused. I let out a short laugh.

"Maybe. I'm not sure if the place is flammable enough, in any case. I'd need an incendiary grenade, or a flamethrower and a hella lotta gas. In any case, they haven't dissected you or anything, so I suppose we can count our blessings."

"Yeah, but they keep poking you with needles."

"Needles ain't the worst of it. The fact they run you down with 'strength tests' or whatever the hell they call legal torture nowadays makes my blood boil"

"It isn't needles."

"It isn't _right_ , either." I snapped, stopping short of shouting. "Let's let it rest, for now. We'll discuss escape plans tomorrow."

"Alright. Good night."

"G'nite." I said, flicking off the light.

And that was the last night either of us slept peacefully for a very long time.


	4. 3: Wake-Up Call

**Denver**

"TAAAAAAAAANK!"

Prey is making loud noises. Big-thing hunting them. Throwing things at prey.

Watch. From high-up. Don't hunt now. Wait. Don't get killed by big-thing.

Big-things bad. Veryvery bad.

"Shitbucket! get the molotov!"

Big-thing smells different now. Like smoke. Burn. Making big noises. Chasing prey.

Prey is shooting with fire-things…

 _KILL IT_

There's a different smell in my nose.

It's familiar…

 _Are you awake?_

 _Like the hospital..._

Light. Cold feeling on my face. I'm not dreaming anymore.

I feel… fuzzy. Tired. There's black in my head, and these little white things flying around in my eyes…

Noises. There's noises going on. Why can't I see? It's too loud to be the barracks, the smells are all wrong…

"D'ya think it was enough knock-out stuff we used?"

"We gave it the normal amount. It's fuckin' horse tranquilizer, and it's been asleep the entire time."

There's a chak-chak-chak-chak-chak noises, too. I've heard it before. At the base, but far away, and…

 _This is Chopper 13-E, reporting from - - - - - -, heading to North Base CE-104_

"Good thing we knocked it out easy, right?"

"Caldwell said to get 'em while they're sleeping. No fight, no mess, no clean up. Easy done."

I can see a little bit more.

It's a metal place. _I've been here before. Or somewhere like it._

I can't feel my arms. There's something holding them down...black things.

I can see two shapes, all blurry and green-brown looking, close by, but I can't smell them, and I don't think they know I'm awake.

Where's Marcy?

I can't smell her, or hear her. I don't think she's close.

I have to get out.

There's more things on my chest. Straps. Holding me down.

They're near my teeth.

 _BITE_

* * *

 **Marcy**

You know what sucks ass? Waking up and not knowing where the hell you are.

Usually, you get there after you're drunk, (so I'm told) after moving to a new place, or just plain after a deep sleep.

Though sometimes, it's because the government's kidnapped and transported you to a research facility in Canada. (Long story. If you ain't read it by now, shame on you.)

So, needless to say, when I woke up in a white room with pointedly non-celestial lights shining down on me, (again) I was pretty damn pissed. This shit was getting old, real fast.

I was awake in seconds, taking in my surroundings. First thing that hit me: It definitely wasn't a hospital. It was bright, glaringly white, and sterile-smelling, but it had no furnishings other than the cot I was lying on, and (weirdly enough) a large mirror taking up the entirety of one wall.

There wasn't anyone else there, either, but I spoke what was on my mind, anyways.

"Cut the shit, Gatling," I said, calling out to the emptiness. "Where the fuck d'ja stick us this time? Does my snot actually cure cancer? Or is it my earwax? Quit hidin', I know you're behind a corner somewhere, and any minutes you're gonna come out and dump some scientific explanation or whatever on me. I get it. So stop the mysterious crap and get your ass out here."

"Your vulgarity is commendable, Miss Walker," a voice that was most certainly not Gatling's said, coming from nowhere and echoing around the room, "However, it is not within your ability, or position, to make such a request."

It sounded like something Gatling would say, sure (which is to say, smug and instantly infuriating) but it was a more Midwestern accent than Californian. And...steelier, somehow. Calmer. Colder.

I tried hefting myself off the cot, and nearly regretted it. My legs crumpled underneath me, and -too late- I realized that my lagging sense of tiredness was not from fatigue, but from knockout drugs.

Shit.

I turned, silently cursing, and directed my attention to the mirror.

Mirrors are seldom there for no reason, and I had a feeling that I wasn't in an evil beauty salon.

"Right, then, Mr. Whoever-The-Fuck-You-Are." I said, venomously. "Do me a favor and show me your pretty, pretty face. I know it's a one-way glass, so quit dicking around."

My head was buzzing, though it didn't know if it was from the anger, or the drugs, or from the quickly-rising fear in my chest that I was trying to hide.

The speaker didn't say anything, but I heard a faint click, and I could see through the glass of the mirror like a window.

There was a man standing there, but it sure as hell wasn't Gatling. This one was wearing a full-out military uniform- a General's (Dad made me memorize 'em all) and his graying hair set in a buzzcut. He looked down at me, crumpled on the floor, his eyes steely.

"I am General Trafford Caldwell, Miss Walker, and I have been placed in charge of this research facility, and of the CEDA's vaccine project." His tone was icy, like he was releasing this information reluctantly.

"Fine." I said, "How do you do. Now where the fuck am I, and where the hell is Gatling?"

My cussing, sadly, didn't faze him, though I doubted it would do much in the first place. He merely raised an eyebrow.

"Director Gatling is currently standing trial for wartime crimes, perpetrated by his incompetence in managing the CEDA, and in mishandling of the Green Flu Outbreak. I am taking over operations of this facility, and the organization, on behalf of the military."

Ah, fuck. Wasn't this turning out to be a pretty little shitstorm?

I hated Gatling, If he were on fire and all I had was a jar of piss on me, hell, I'd drink it. But if there's one thing I could be reassured about while he was around, it's that there wasn't anyone worse to take his place. True, he was an ass, but not this level of ass as this looked like it was turning out to be.

"Right." I said, carefully, my increasing panic becoming harder and harder not to show.

"So if Gatling's gone, where am I? What do you want from me?"

"I won't divulge our exact location, Miss Walker." Caldwell replied, icily, "As I have mentioned before, you are in a military-sanctioned facility, for the purpose of your protection and aiding the war effort with your biological, ah, assets."

Damnit, Not this shit again.

"So you want me for my blood. Again." I said. This elicited no response.

Then a thought struck me, and made the my panic levels rise even higher.

"Where's Denver?" I asked, quietly, and dreading the answer.

" _Subject 1-CB_ " he said, insistently, "Is not your concern."

I won't list the string of insults, curses, and general blasphemies that flew through my mind right then, 'cos I'd fill a book that would probably start a religious war in 8 different countries. I tried standing, then, managing to stay up and walk over (albeit, in a wobbly fashion) to the glass. Even then, I had to lean against the wall for support.

I looked into those stupid, steely, smug eyes of his, and gave him a red-eyed glare that told him to go to hell.

"You tell me," I said, barely keeping my anger from boiling over, "where Denver is, you son of a bitch, or I will personally smash this window, shoot you through the eyes, and burn this fucking place down."

He simply sighed, his concrete expression never changing.

"Fine. If you insist, Miss Walker, Subject 1-C is being transported to a separate research facility."

That cut it.

"You let me out of this shit-hole this instant." I said ignoring the burning, drugged feeling in my legs, and the fact that what I was doing was probably useless. "Or the walls are gonna be painted with blood."

"The barrier is enforced plexiglass, Miss Walker." he replied, tapping it with his fist. "I highly doubt you could breach it, let alone harm me. And, as much as you want to, I cannot, and will not, let you leave, for both your safety and mine. You are, in fact, of too much value to the military to allow for harm, or escape; what more would it take than a bomb on an unprotected base, or mutinous ideas allowed to form? Though the former Director may have been more...lax in his protocol, as long as I am in charge of this operation, I cannot allow for it to happen."

He stared back at me, furious red-eyed glare meeting his concrete gaze, and then he turned, heading left to God-knows where.

"Progress is progress, Miss Walker."

And then he was gone.

* * *

 **Denver**

The straps taste horrible. Bitter, chemical, and a little bit like sick and blood.

I still bite. Tear through it with my teeth, it makes little zzzp-zzp-zzp noises when I bite it through, and still biting when my teeth and jaw and neck hurt,

I'm almost free. The top strap feels looser every time I pull...

 _Snap._

I arms are out. I can sit up a little, but my legs and hands are still trapped. But if I pull them free…

"Hey!"

One of the shapes is coming closer. I can see a little more now. It's a solider, like the ones near the base.

This one doesn't look happy.

He's holding a gun, and it's pointed at me.

"Don't move." he says. I want to growl, and scare him, but I don't. Scared men shoot.

"Everything alright back there, Mike?" say another voice, far away, in front of me.

"It's under control, Benny." I hear another voice say.

"Good." says the faraway voice. "We're gonna hit some turbulence ahead, so brace yourselves."

"Shit." says the soldier with the gun. "Jim, strap it down again. I'll watch it."

"I'm not taking a fucking step near that thing if it's awake." says Jim. I can smell a little more, now, and I know Jim is scared. "I've seen people ripped apart in front of my eyes by things like… that."

"I gave you a fucking order, Jim." says Mike, who smells angry, but scared, too, under the angry.

Jim doesn't say anything.

"Look, it's under control." Mike says says, and he hits my head with the gun, to I see little things flying around in front of my eyes, and it burns where he hit me. "Do your damn job."

"Yessir." says Jim, and he starts doing something with the straps.

I lie still. The gun is veryvery close.

Then, the metal place starts shaking,

"Shit!" yells Mike, and he falls down. Jim is still up, but he's stopped doing the strap thing, and is holding on to the thing I'm lying on.

Move.

I pull my hands free. The straps on my legs are still there, but I cut them with my claws. The shaking scares me, but I have to keep going.

Run.

"Mike! Mike, IT GOT OUT-"

He smells ververyscared now.

Growl.

 _Time to go._


	5. 4: This Again

The metal place shakes again.

I can see even better, now I'm out. There's a hole in the wall, and wind blowing through. There's sky outside,

I'm up in the air. I think, and my chest feels funny. _I'm panicking._

Mike is getting up. Jim fell over, because of the shaking, and Mike has his gun up at me again.

"Move, and die, zombie."

I want to pounce; part of me wants to tear and bite and attack, because he is the enemy and I must, but I know the gun is there, and it will kill me first.

I don't move.

The thing starts shaking again. Benny yells _Sunnavabitch!_ from the front, and Mike is down. He's not holding the gun anymore.

Bunch up my legs, push off, arms out…

I pounce.

No voices yelling at me, except one, that says _I must live I must live I must live and if I want to live I must attack._

There's a _krak_ sound when I hit him, and then he falls down and won't move. I smell a little blood, but he doesn't smell dead. He doesn't get up.

I hear something behind me. I turn.

Jim is trying to get up. He smells even more scared than before. He's trying to get the gun and saying shitshitshitshitshit.

He's far away, but close enough for me to pounce, I don't hit him as hard, but he screams and waves around his hands…

 _GetitoffgetitoffgetitoffGETITOFFOFME_

Benny is yelling, too. "This is Chopper 0NT-V03R, mayday, making an emergency land on Red territory, coordinates 3-8 point 8-8-1-9 degrees north, 8-0 point-"

I don't hear the rest. I'm looking at the man I've pounced on, yelling, smelling the fear and pain and confusion and more fear…

Then it feels like we're falling, going down, and I'm falling off the ground, going up when we're going down, and I'm hitting things, so I close my eyes and curl up and wait for it to be over.

* * *

The sounds stop, after awhile. I think I blacked out. I was up in the air, and now I'm lying down.

I think.

 _Yeah_. I decide. _Air doesn't hurt this much._

I can smell the place around me. Smoke and fire and blood, my blood and other blood; it burns my nose and I feel my eyes getting all full of water. Yuck.

I hear things, too. A crackling, like the fire in the woodstove, bigger and far off, and and screechy-metal sounds from all around me.

There's a groan. I think that's me, too.

No, it's near me. I get up, even though the rest of me says _owowowowowowow_ and _crk_ and _krnk_. The smoke is all front of me; lal I see is gray, gray, gray, and stinging in my eyes. There's some blobby things- trees- all around, but that's all.

It's cold. As cold as The Cabin, or even more. I'm somewhere else. I think, and it makes my head hurt even more.

There's another groan.

My head is doing the screaming thing again. Many voices, and they're all loud. But I hear one, very quiet, and I know it's mine.

 _Where's Mar?_

She's not here. I can't smell her, and I didn't smell her in the metal place.

Chest is thumping faster. Thmp thmp thmp and my throat is tight and there's little spots flying around in my eyes and everything is screaming again….,

 _I have to run._

 _Get up high._

I need to see. Get somewhere safe. In the other place city there was always places where I could see. Tall buildings. I was safe up there.

The smoke is going away a little. I can see the trees better. There's lots of metal pieces and little fires around me, but I run past them and climb up the tree, quick-quick, and I dig my claws into the bark so i can go faster.

I get on a big branch. There's not very many leaves, but I can see, and they cover me so nothing can find me.

There's the metal-thing on the ground, all broken and crumpled. It's a helicopter.

I was in there. They were taking me somewhere.

I don't know where, but it was away from the base. I don't think that's good.

I hear something- the man from the helicopter. Mike.

He's leaning on a tree and I can smell a little blood on the wind. He's talking into a little black box.

"-Ackerman from over borderlands, do you copy? Charlie Whiskey Delta is out, bird is a smoking hole. Pilot down, Rollison is Tango Uniform, requesting backup, coordinates are 3-8 point-8"

I don't listen. I'm thinking.

 _He's the one who took me._

 _They took her, too._

 _He knows where Marcy is._

I pounce.

Pouncing off the tree is hard. I bunch up my legs, all tight (even though they hurt alot still) and I pull back a little, then then I push, really hard, with my feet and sometimes with my hands, and then it's like flying, like planes and those funny squwaky things Marcy says are birds.

The wind pushes on my faces and makes my eyes get all watery. My claws are out, but I don't scream like I did in the city. I stay quiet, and he doesn't hear me coming.

I hit, hard, and I hear something go crk like in the helicopter. He screams and screams and the little black thing goes out of his hands and flies off far away.

I'm not hurt. Just angry.

I put my hand over his mouth so he stops screaming, and my knee on his chest.

"Where's Marcy?" I ask.

She once told me that the jugular vein is located on the left side of the neck underneath the mandible, and that it takes less than 30 seconds to render an average human male unconscious if punctured or severed.

I forget where left is, but I put my claws on his throat anyways and uncover his mouth.

He takes a deep breath, and I can smell the fear and angry in air around him. His eyes are wide, and his face is pale. He tries kicking and hitting me, but he can't move much under my weight.

"Get the fuck off of me!" he screams. I don't.

"I can kill you in a minute." I growl, but he doesn't stop.

"Look, you fucking piece of undead shit, I have a unit coming right now tracking the crash, and when they get here, your ass is gra-"

He doesn't finish talking, because I squeeze his throat tighter.

"Where is she?"

I let go again. His face is a little more blue.

"I have no idea who this fucking Mary pers-"

"The other one. The one with me in the base." I say. It's getting hard for me not to claw at his face.

"Charlie Beta Omega?" he says, and he sounds confused. "It's somewhere in Texas, you pathetic piece of scum. The only reason I'm telling you is so I can st-"

Texas?

It's one of the west states. Near where we were.

It's all I need to know.

Mike is cursing again. I don't think he'll tell me anything else, so I curl up my hand and make it into a fist.

WHACK.

I don't think I killed him. But I don't think he can run away anymore. There's a big bruise on his head now, anyways.

I pick up the black box. It isn't making any noises, but I smash it against a tree, just to be safe.

Then I run.

I don't know where. Just away. Away from the trees and the smell of smoke and blood and anger and fear, jumping and running and looking back sometimes in case there's anything behind me.

I run even when my legs burn and hurt, just so I can be far away from the helicopter as I can.

I don't stop for a long time.


	6. 5: Hitting a Wall

When my legs won't run anymore, I slow down.

I don't know where I am. It looks like the woods near The Cabin, but it doesn't smell right. I can't smell the smoke anymore, either.

The running hurt my legs, even more. I don't stand up. I sit down, because it hurts my chest and throat when I breathe, and my head hurts, too, now that I'm not thinking runrunrunrunrunrun.

She's gone.

It hits me in the head without hurting, but I can feel it in my chest anyways. There's one part of me that isn't screaming, and it says to me, You are all alone in a place you don't know, and she is gone and she can't help you.

Then the other part of my head that isn't screaming anymore stops and tells me, Sleep.

It's dark, my head and my legs and my chest hurts, and I am tired.

The air is colder, too. I pull my hood up, but it still leaves my hands cold. I'm too cold to smell, but I think I'm alone.

So I find a tree, and climb it. It takes a long time, because my legs yell at me when I climb, and my hands can't hold to branches very much, but I get up there.

There's still screaming in my head. I'm too tired to listen. I just dig my claws into the bark and curl up, and sleep.

* * *

Marcy

They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting to get different results each time, despite what the circumstances may tell you.

Frankly, I think that's BS.

I mean, suppose your day is the same, in and out. You wake up the same time, eat your breakfast, take the same route to work, say the same thing to the secretary as you walk, eat the same lunch at the same place, all that crap…

And you expect your life to be fairly chaos-free. Pay your dues, get a shitty retirement plan at age 65, watch reruns of Badland Brawlers until ya die...

But then the apocalypse comes and fucks up your pretty little routine, so you're either clubbing zombies to death in an office bathroom with a toilet dispenser (if you're lucky), or ending up being the one clubbed to death (not so much.)

What I'm trying to say, is: Never place too many expectations on similar outcomes. Stay on your feet, know what the hell is going on, and be ready to run.

I suppose I could be wrong. I never majored in psychology, though I can rightfully say that whoever made up that quote I mentioned above has never, ever felt what it's like to go insane.

Oh, I started simple enough. Pissed as I was, and as much as I would've loved to coat those pretty white walls with Caldwell's blood and otherwise, I vowed not to go around the bend. That was my plan- from Day One, at least.

I'd keep myself busy, doing pushups and leg lifts and squats and every other damn exercise I would think of, partly to keep from my body from going to hell, and partly from keeping me from thinking about it too much.

The rest of my time? Plotting my revenge. Well, and figuring out how the fuck I'm going to get out of here.

But mostly revenge.

The prospects for both, unfortunately, were looking pretty damn piss-poor. The only pieces of furniture in the place was a sleeping cot, which was bolted to the floor, ruling it out as a ram-rod. The mirrors weren't particularly shatter-happy, either (As one kick and a sore foot later proved). The bathroom off to the side offered no loose objects- no removeable toilets lids, weaponizable plungers, nothin'- other than a weird finger-toothbrush thing they gave me, presumably so that I couldn't use a plastic handle as a shiv. The only vents in the place were about the size of a postcards and were blocked with fans. And, sadly, there didn't seem to be any guards for me to seduce (Which ain't my style, but, hey, ya take what you can get.)

So I was pretty much screwed over.

Nobody ever came inside- not while I was awake, in any case. The morning (Well, presumably morning. Fluorescent lights fuck with your REM cycle like no tomorrow) after I ended up in that hell hole, I woke up with the wonderful, groggy feeling of being drugged off my ass, and a port in my arm. I assume the assholes were too cowardly to step in without me being asleep, so I had no chance to strangle them with my bare hands.

It was on that particular day that, as I lay back in my cot, my mind went blank. No new ideas emerged. My anger, though still roiling, went stagnant. My ears buzzed with a sound that wasn't there, and my eyes went a little blurry, partly from the drugs, and partly from something else.

And despite the ache in my arm from the bruises and plastic they'd stuck in there, it was nothing like the ache in my head that came from looking up at the stupid goddamn white ceiling, and realizing, for the first time in my life that I, Marzia Adelaide Walker, survivalist, planner of escape, and prepper for the worst, had no fucking idea what to do.


	7. 6: Walk Along to Another Day

I don't know what to do.

There's walking. I've lost count of all the tree I pass; it's all woods, like back at The Cabin. I walk and walk and walk and don't hear anything but the trees, and sometimes squirrels, but I don't feel like chasing them.

My stomach growls; I have to get food. There's nothing here. _Find prey_ find something to eat. Something that doesn't scream. My head is too full of screaming anyways.

I still walk. I need to find out where I am.

Where I need to go.

I walk for a long time, even when it's dark and it gets cold, cold enough to see the white smoke-stuff when I breathe. My hood is up, but my hands and face and the hurt parts of my leg are cold, the burning kind of cold that stings my eyes.

The smells start to change, after awhile. Not so much dirt and leaf and tree; more gas and oil and car and…

 _Sick._

It's faint, and not fresh. After I walk a little more, there's blood, but mostly the smell of dead.

I don't feel so hungry anymore.

It gets stronger, the more I walk. It's even darker, but I can still see fine. There's less trees, and the ground is hard under my feet. _Pavement_

After while I see houses. No more woods; they're behind me. They're shaped like the cabin, but bigger- really bigger. There's lots of them, all smushed together.

I've seen something like this before…

 _I'm biking to Seb's house, mom, I'll be back before five…_

 _Wind in my face, the sun above me, and I'm going fast on the road…_

Then it's dark, and cold, and the smell of sick and blood is in my nose again.

I shake my head, which is hurting again. _What was that?_ I didn't smell it, but I still saw it and heard it…

There's a growl behind me.

I turn. _Pay attention!_ I think, and then I see a woman.

She smells Sick. Very Sick.

She has blood on her face. On her hands, on her everything… and she's growling at me.

 _Infected._

 _Enemy_

I don't think. My hands and my legs do it for me. I get in my jumping crouch, and growl back.

 _Challenge._

She screams. I hear it everywhere, all echoey around the houses, and she runs at me, hands up, and coming at me, ready to claw…

I push on my legs and _launch._

I don't mean to scream, but my head does that anyways- it's a hunting scream, the kind that scared away rivals and made the Infected run…

My claws are out, and swipe and her face. Then I land- _crrnch_ \- and

 _tear and rip and attack and-_

It stops screaming.

Her eyes are still open, and bleeding a little. There's blood on my claws, and my sweater…

I smell sick.

My stomach makes a little _grgl_ noise, and I don't think I'm hungry at all.

I leave the body behind. I watch and smell and listen for other ones, but I don't think there are any more. There's bodies on the ground, but they're mostly long-dead. They still smell sick.

Everything smells sick.

I don't like being down low anymore, So I high jump onto one of the houses. I see the woods on one side of me, and more houses on the other side.

I still don't know where I am.

I need sleep. Somewhere safe. One of the windows to the houses is open, and if I aim-

 _Ooof._

Ow.

I think I hit a wall. I'm inside, though.

There's not as much of a sick smell in here. There are new smells, but I don't know how to name them, and they're all old and dusty.

 _Snff._ Stupid dust.

It's darker inside, and it takes me a little while to see better.

It's a big room, with a couch, but it doesn't smell nice like in The Cabin. There's a black-box thing on the wall, but I'm not sure what it is…

 _L, lemmee change the channel, pleeeeease? David Belle is doing an interview on Channel 8, you can watch Elmo later…_

It's a... TV. I think. I used to fight about it, but I don't know why.

 _Someone named L..._

When I try and think about harder, my head hurts even more, so I leave the room so it stops.

The next room I go into is the kitchen. It's bigger and shinier than the one in the cabin, and when I look in the cupboards there's not any MRE's, just canned stuff. I'm hungry, so I don't care. It takes awhile with my claws, but I get one open and eat the stuff inside. I don't know what it is, but it tastes like _MRE09 Menu 03._ I start feeling better after I eat a few more cans of the stuff, and my head doesn't hurt any more.

I go back to the couch room, but I don't hear any more new noises. Then because I'm tired, and I don't know where I am, and I still don't know what to do or go or anything, I curl up on the couch and sleep.


	8. 7: Four Makes a Crowd

_2 weeks later_

It was too cold for this BS.

Heck, it as too cold for _anything,_ really, and Travis didn't want to be out here, in any case. But, he reflected, it was probably better than being one of the numerous frozen corpses he kept having to step over.

"Hey, Eve." He said, glancing at his companion, and cradling his semiautomatic in case of any unexpected surprises, "Next time, do you think we can get Russ to break his arm somewhere warmer?"

Eve snorted, continuing to crunch down the road and as she watched for Infected. "I thought you were from Indiana." she said, brushing aside a strand of black hair, and shooting Travis an amused look. "Don't you get a truckload of snow every year?"

Travis jogged to catch up with her, his snow boots crunching the ice coating the street. "We do." he wheezed, slightly out of breath from the sudden exertion. "But this old man's used to sitting in front of a nice, warm fire, not fighting zombies and scratching for food in some forsaken town in-"

He paused. "Where are we now?"

"I think it's Ohio." Eve mused. "I'll check the map again. And it's not _that_ cold."

Travis looked at her strangely. "Aren't you from Puerto Rico?" he asked.

Eve smirked under her scarf. "My parents are. I'm not. I'm Illinois born and raised, and this here isn't anything more than a little nose-nipper." she paused. "And this cold means that we haven't had to deal with anything since we got here."

"True."

There was a weighted silence.

"Smells better, too."

"I'll grant you that."

Then they said nothing, and only the sounds of ice (and otherwise) crunching underneath their boots filled the air. Eventually, they reached a nondescript brick building, and Eve stopped, eying it carefully.

"I don't think we've raided this one yet."

"I hope it's not another office building." griped Tarvis. "All they have are K-Cups and instant oatmeal packets."

"Looks promising enough." she replied. "It's worth a try."

With that, she kicked the door in.

The inside was dusty, but, mercifully, it was the only smell that pervaded the place. The halls were darkened, and fallen ceiling panels snapped ominously underfoot. Electric wiring hung like overgrown vines, and despite the fact it couldn't possibly be live after that long, Eve and Travis were careful to skirt around them.

"This had better be the last building we have to raid in the ridiculous little town." hissed Travis. "How long is it to Charleston, again?"

Eve sighed. "I have no idea, Trav. I'd say 4 weeks, if he'd stop adding so many damn detours…"

"That long?"

"Well, you know how he is about shortcuts."

"It's starting to get on my nerves."

"You'd prefer the border?"

Travis didn't reply, and Eve had the general feeling that he was sulking. _Big baby_ , she thought. The again, at this rate, they'd only hit the Carolinas by the time the snow had melted. _Ay por dios_.

Trying to take her mind off of such things, she opened a door at random, giving the inside a cursory glance before turning to Travis again. "We'll make it there eventually," she said, trying to be bright, but Travis didn't respond. She shot a looked at him, and then again back through the door. "It's just a janitor's closet, I don't think there's anyth -"

"In the corner." he hissed, through clenched teeth, his gun up. She trailed his gaze.

Past the dim outlines of old forgotten brooms and mops, and the sharp tang of chemical cleaner, there was a bundle of clothes next to one of the shelves. At closer inspection, Eve realized that it was a pair bloodstained, torn jeans, very dingy looking Nikes, and a ratty-looking parka, which was steadily rising and falling with the occupant's breathing.

"What the…?"

Before the either of them could properly react, the pile shifted, muzzily lifting its head (or what looked like it) up, looking straight at the two. As soon as it spotted her, the bundle gasped, bolting upright to its knees and throwing both of its gloved hands in the air with a wild shout.

"Don'tshootdon'tshootI'mhumanPLEASEdon'tshoot!" It screeched, terror in its voice. Eve lowered her gun.

"It's just a kid, Trav." she said, relieved. The initial yelling had been been a bit of a fright, true, but at least it hadn't tried to attack them outright. The bundle- person, whatever, kept its hands raised, stiff and scared.

"We're not gonna hurt ya." Travis said. He offered the boy a hand. "Ya with anyone?"

The kid shook his head. "It's just me." He took the proffered hand and lifted himself up, revealing a surprisingly short stature, and a pale face half-covered by a hood. He straightened his jacket, and pulled his gloves a little tighter over his hands. The survivors watched in silence.

"So you're alone?" said Eve, a dubious tone lining her voice. The kid nodded.

"How on God's green Earth did you manage to survive out here?"

He shrugged, a little red rising to his pallid cheeks. "Running, mostly."

"You ran," Eve echoed, flatly.

He gave a nervous grin. "I don't like fighting much…"

Travis shook his head. "Must be a darn fast runner, then." Eve raised her eyebrow.

 _You don't just go solo out here without becoming zombie chow._ She thought to herself, but she didn't it for the time being. He didn't _look_ all that malicious; scrawny, yeah, pale looking, true, but he looked more like a lost kid at a department store than a grizzled survivor.

"The name's Eve." she said. sticking out her hand, and nodding in the other man's direction. "He's Travis."

The kid looked her outstretched arm blankly, as if he'd never encountered such a thing before. This struck Eve as odd; As ill-mannered as modern youth were, they usually knew how to shake hands.

Suddenly, revelation seemed to dawn in his eyes, and he took her hand and shook it. His hold was surprisingly light, like he was afraid to break something with his grip, and the nervous smile he gave did nothing to alleviate her suspicions.

"I'm Denver." he said, his voice and hand still shaking. Eve had to pull her hand away with force to get him to stop. She shot a look to Travis.

 _Sounds as fake as it comes,_ she thought, and the look on her partner's face confirmed that he agreed with her. "Where are you headed?"

"Savannah." He replied, maybe a little quickly. "I'm… looking for someone."

"In this mess?" Travis mused. Denver avoided his gaze.

"Yeah." His expression was unreadable- the jacket hood hid his face well- but the hunched shoulders, low voice, and general apathy when he said this made the air of defeat around him unmistakable.

Eve softened her expression a little. "What kind of weapons are you carrying?" she said, though not unkindly.

He shrugged again. "Um. Not really anything. Uh. I don't like fighting that much…"

She shot another look at Travis, and his expression was equally as incredulous. She jabbed a thumb at the door. _Outside. Now._ Travis nodded.

"We… need to talk." she told the kid, trying to hide her urgency, "Wait here."

Denver nodded. " 'K." He made no movement, but stood awkwardly in the same spot as they turned away.

It was only when the door thudded shut behind them Travis spoke.

"I don't trust him."

Eve nodded in agreement. "Not by a mile and a half."

He ran a hand through his balding, salt and pepper hair, shaking his head all the way. "How in the Lord's name could he have done it? He didn't even have a crowbar on him!"

"Which makes him either harmless, or it mean's he's hiding something…"

"You don't think he's with a group?"

Eve shook her head. "We've been here too long. We'd notice. And I sure as hell didn't see any footprints going in."

Travis grunted, in a non conditional kind of way. "I still can't believe he can't come up with a better name than _Denver_."

She snorted. "At least it isn't Hartford. Or Columbus."

"I think if he was stupid enough to name himself Columbus, he wouldn't even be alive," he chortled. He stopped, and his smile faded. "Assuming he's telling the truth."

Eve glanced at the door, warily. "Assuming that."

There was a weighted silence, broken only by a sigh.

"How long has it been?" she said, quietly. "Since we've seen another living thing?"

"Five weeks." Travis replied. "Unless you count that one guy who tried to throw a dried-ice bomb at us from the top of that hotel in Springfield."

"He was a _cerrero_. No better than the infected."

"So this one's an improvement."

"I suppose." She glanced at the door again. "And three is no way to run a group."

"We're taking him on, then?"

"What else can we do? You're old. Russ' arm still isn't healed. And you know I'm an awful shot. We need every bit of firepower we can get. What if one of us gets hurt again? We'd need one to carry the other, maybe two, and at least one person to cover. If we get into another… incident, we're in for a hunk of _arroz con cuolo_."

"Which is…?"

"Rice with ass."

"...Ah."

"Though I suppose we're scraping the bottom of the barrel here."

"Do you think he'll be useful?"

She shrugged. "If he can make it out here without a gun, he could be Superman for all I care."

"Some of those things are fast- he couldn't have run from all of them." Travis _hmphed_. "We'll watch him?"

"Of course. If he tries anything…"

"We'll take care of it?" finished Travis.

"Yep." She nodded, and gripped the shotgun a little tighter.

Eve banged on the door, making the above ceiling shudder and shed down a fine cloud of dust.

"Kid, are you still in there?"

"Yeah." Came the muffled reply.

She wrenched the door open. The boy was still standing there, in the same spot, waiting, an innocent expression on what parts of his face the two could see.

Eve narrowed her eyes. "Listen, Dallas…"

"Denver."

"Whatever. Here's the deal: we're headed the same way as you are. Frankly, you're the only living thing we've seen in weeks. You tag with us, and we'll take you as far as Charleston."

"Really?" The kid's face seemed to brighten. Travis nodded.

"Just be sure to pull your weight. We don't know what's out there, and Russ won't be happy if he finds out we've taken on a slacker."

"Russ?"

"He's back in the safe room. He's a little…" Travis searched for words for a moment- "Uh, rough, when you first meet him, but I'm sure he'll warm up to you just fine." he added, hastily. Eve nodded, still a little apprehensive.. "So, are you in?"

The kid looked taken aback for a moment. "I-Yeah. Yes. Please. Charleston. It isn't far from Savannah, is it?"

She appeared to think for a moment. "It's the same direction. I'd say about a week, week and a half's walk there from the city. Give or take."

This seemed to satisfy Denver, and he cracked a smile. "Then I'm in."

"One more thing." Travis added. "The hood needs to go." he gestured to the ratty parka. Eve nodded in agreement. "He's right. The last thing we need is for us to think you're one of the jumper dudes. That, and it cuts off your peripheral vision."

"Jumper dudes?" He asked. His face, against all odds, turned a little more pale.

"You know? Those horrible ones that jump out of nowhere and start tearing out your-" Travis stopped. "Kid? Are you OK?"

He seemed to snap out of it. "Sorry." he said, shaking his head, his voice sounding tired all of a sudden. "I'll take it off."

Eve shrugged, and gave a sympathetic smile. "I know, it's kind of a hassle, but I don't want anything to hap- _EL DIABLO!"_

Travis gaped. "Lord…"

"Huh? I-" The kid stared at the two in confusion.

Eve swallowed, pointing. "Your… eyes. What happened to them?"

"Oh." He touched the sides of his face, where the crisscrossed, painful-looking scar tissue was. "These."

"They're, um. Healed. It was an accident." He paused. "From a while ago."

"An accident?" Travis whispered. Denver winced.

"Yeah. Uh. I don't like to talk about it." He avoided their gaze.

Travis and Eve shared a look of bewilderment. "Eeeh- Sorry." Travis winced. "I didn't mean to-"

"It's fine." Denver cut in, his voice pained. "I'm past it."

There was a moment of awkward silence. "It's getting dark." Eve said, finally, glancing out the window. "We need to get back."

"Right." Said the other two. She turned to the kid. "Anything you need to take?"

He scanned the room in a half-hearted sort of way, and gave a shrug. "No."

"Then we're off." She said with a nod, and, with the other following her, turned out the door.


	9. 8: Reluctant Introductions

_Denver_

My jacket still smells like cleaner.

I wish I could still have my hood up. The cold keeps hurting my ears. But I think it's better than being shot.

They don't know.

I can't let them know.

Maybe I shouldn't have said yes.  
But I still don't know the way to Savannah.

The darker-looking one- Eve- is ahead of us. She's more awake looking. Always watching. Travis is all pale and big and tired, and he smells like gas, and sort of like the rubbing alcohol Marcy used to keep in the cabin. He isn't looking as much,. Neither of them smell like they want to hurt me, but they're a little scared.

But they don't know.

They think I'm human.

 _You_ are _human,_ I tell myself. _Just not the kind of human they are._

 _Kinda._

"Can you shoot at all, kid?" Travis asks, from behind me. I shake my head. Even when Marcy tried to teach me, the sound would hurt my ears too much, and she gave up after awhile.

He made the _hmph_ sound. "You're gonna want to learn, if you're gonna keep up."

Eve looks back. "Do we even have any spares to give him?"

Travis shrugs. I'm sure we can scrounge something."

"It's not going to be of much use if he can't use it."

"I suppose he could learn…."

Eve makes a snorting noise, through her nose, but she doesn't say anything. We keep walking. The ground goes _crnh crnch_ under our feet. It gets darker the more we walk.

"So…" Eve says, after awhile. "Who are you looking for?"

I think a bit. I don't want to say too much. "Just... someone. Who might be able to help me."

"That's a stretch. Do you have a name?"

I think again. "Whitaker. Whitaker Walker is his name, I think."

Both Eve and Travis stop, suddenly, and I almost walk into Eve. "You mean Sodapop Whitaker?" Travis asks, his voice all high and quiet. "Gun shop? Obsessed with cola?"

I'm not sure what cola is, but I remember the gun store. I nod.

" _Acho men_." Eve says. I'm not sure what an echo is, but I think that's a bad thing. "What on earth do you want to do with him?"

My stomach does a little churning thing, which doesn't feel very good. "I think he can help me."

"Him? _Loco_ Whitaker? A man willing to let a survivor group get ripped to shreds because they got him the wrong kind of pop? I think you're flagging down the wrong light, kid." She shakes her head. "He'll just as soon leave you to the dogs. Whatever you're looking for from him…"

"I need to find someone." I say, quickly. "How do you know about him?"

Eve looks at Travis from the side of her eye. "Mostly radio talk." she says. "People tend to exaggerate, but there are some real crazies out there. It's probably better to stay clear of them."

I shake my head. "It's all that I know about. I think he's the only person I can trust. Um. About the person I'm looking for. He knows h- the person. Which I'm looking for."

She doesn't say anything. She just stares at me. Travis puts a hand on my shoulder.

"Listen, Denver. We'll continue this conversation later, but…"

"Stay away from Whitaker." Eve says. "He's nothing but trouble."

* * *

We walk a little more.

When it starts getting dark, they walk faster. It's not hard to keep up, but I wish I can go on the rooftops like I'm used to. We keep having to go around cars and gates and things blocking the way.

After while, they stop in that place in between two buildings, and they get to a red door.

I've seen them before. Sometimes there's food in there, or a good place to sleep. This one is closed, but Eve doesn't open it. She bangs on it with her fist.

"Russ, open up." She sounds annoyed. "It's us. We found another guy out there."

"Did you loot the body?" I hear from inside. The voice is low, and a little angry sounding, but also tired at the same time. Eve sighs.

"He's _alive_ , Russ. We're pretty sure he's harmless. Could you open up already?"

"Fine."

I hear a _thunk_ from the door, and it shakes and rattles, and it sounds like someone is scraping along it. Travis sighs. He seems to like sighing a lot.

"I don't see the point of all the darn locks, we're the only ones here." he says, all low, so that only Eve and me can hear. Eve goes _shhhhh._

"You know how fussy he gets. It's his way of venting."

"He could do something that takes less time…"

"Oh, hush."

The door opens.

Russ… seems angry. He looks mad. He smells mad. But not like Big Angry mad. More like… quiet mad. Like the kind Marcy is whenever she talks to Gatling. She never yells (well, not all the time) or fights him, but it's always _there_ , like she wants to jump him and tear his face off.

He has a beard, a big bushy one that covers his face, so I can't see what he looks like underneath. One of his arms is in a sling, and then he smells tired, along with the mad.

He looks at me first. "Awfully damn scrawny for a live one, Eve. Are you sure you didn't just pick up some bunker lurker that crawled to the surface by accident?"

Eve shrugs. "We'll take what we can get. If he doesn't hold his own, then we don't have to take him on."

Russ nods, and he steps to the side so we can go in.

The room is… _heavy_ smelling. It's sort of big, but with only one door, and no windows (which I don't like.)

There's not much room to jump or pounce, but I know not to say anything.

"It isn't exactly the, uh, homiest of safe rooms." Travis says, behind me, "But it's warm. Mind Betsy over there, will ya?"

He points to a little box thing on the ground, that smells like gas. The air around it is wavy, and it feels hot near my leg. The gas smell makes my eyes water, and I cough a little. Travis smiles.

"You'll get used to it, don't you worry." He says. "It's either this, or freeze to death."

I nod. I don't say anything, because I don't want to taste gas in my mouth.

There's not much space in the room, but there's some tables with maps and cans on them. In the corner, there's a bunch of blankets and sleeping bags on the ground.

Travis starts to do something with Betsy. Russ is just watching me. He doesn't any anything, but I can almost feel his eyes on me. Eve puts her gun down on the table.

"You can take the gloves off now, kid. I know it's chilly, but there's no point in keeping them on near the heater."

Gloves…

 _Crap._

"Uh…" I say. _Thinkthinkthinkthink…._

"Um. They, er, get cold. Really easy. I, uh, like to keep them on. When I'm inside. Uh. Yeah."

She looks suspicious, and I almost hide my hands behind my back. _Please don't ask please don't ask…_

Then she shrugs. "Whatever works for you." Then she turns and starts talking to Russ.

None of them see me sighing. It feels like a big heavy thing in my chest just left me.

 _I'm safe._

 _For now._


	10. 9: The Paranoid Prepper's Guide to Life

**9\. The Paranoid Prepper's Guide to Life**

When he was alive, my father, in all of his wisdom, would give me little pieces of life advice that would seem somewhat non-sequitur at worst and anecdotal at best, but were usually relevant in some way. Some of them include:

1\. Know your exit routes.

2\. Finger on the trigger only when you're ready to fire.

3\. Never cross a mercenary.

4\. Don't fry bacon shirtless.

5\. Have a plan to kill everyone you meet.

Sadly, few of of these seemed to apply. The only exit routes in this hell-hole were blocked and guarded. They took my gun (which pissed me off) and didn't bother to give me any bacon (which REALLY pissed me off.) There was also a distinct lack of mercenaries to anger, so I had to settle for Caldwell.

It seemed to be working. This is where rule #5 comes in.

Well, it had come in for about 10 minutes, up until they'd caught me making a break for it down the hall after I'd stolen a key-card from the guard's body, but, hey, progress is progress.

I spat. It was tinged a dark pink, but I'd do anything to get the taste out of my mouth right now.

"Was tearing out the man's jugular _really_ necessary, Ms Walker?" Caldwell asked, dryly. Mind you, _he_ was standing safely behind three inches of plexiglass. It was a little hard to see him behind all the blood smears. I shrugged.

"Dunno if I hit the vein. Shame, really, I was aiming for it." I started to clean some bodily parts from under my nails. "I definitely didn't hit his windpipe, he was screamin' like a stuck pig the whole time. He'll live."

Caldwell's eyes took on a hard look.

"That man was one of the leading scientists in the Green Flu research division." he said, simply. "Your actions may have set us behind by weeks, if not months."

I shrugged. "Fuckin' stupid, that's what he was." I spat again. _Copper, salt, yech…_ "Coming into a room unarmed? Really?"

Caldwell sighed, in an angry sort of way. "The fact you're making this more difficult, Miss Walker, isn't going to aid you. This is one of the best guarded facilities in the country. If you keep going on like this, all you're going to do is-"

"What? Make things harder for me?" I cut in . "My goodness dearie me. What'll happen? You'll take away my dessert privileges? Or even," I clutched my chest in mock distress- "You'll _ground_ me? Lord, bless my soul…"

Caldwell glowered. "I don't know why you're acting this way, Miss Walker. We've given you every commodity possible-"

" _You locked me in a fucking cage._ " I was up, standing in front of the blood-spattered glass, eye to eye with an asshole. "You disarmed me, stuck me in a little room with no windows, you've probably killed the only goddamn person I've trusted in forever by cutting him into little bits-"

"And for what?" Caldwell cut me off. "You're safe. Nothing can ever hurt you. You certainly have a better outlook on life than most people on the Eastern Seaboard, or anywhere else in this country. Frankly, the only reason you aren't sedated is because the researchers are concerned it may have detrimental effects on your samples. But isn't that what you wanted?"

I glared at him, anger seething in my insides. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Wasn't that the point of your initial outpost? Complete isolation? Safety from the turmoils of the country?"

" _This isn't the fucking same."_ I growled. "I had freedom-"

"And you had safety." He nodded. "Isn't that your goal? The military, the CEDA… they only want you to be safe.

Marzia."

That was it, That little, dental-floss, no, _hairline_ thread that I'd been hanging on snapped. I didn't care about the blood. I didn't care about the glass. I didn't care about shit.

I slammed my fist against the wall, making the entire thing vibrate. It hurt, but what did I care?

"Do not." I hissed. _Fuck you, fuck you all to the hell you were spawned from…_

"Call me Marzia." _The only person who can call me that is_ _dead_ _._

Caldwell didn't even flinch. With a soft _click,_ the lights on his side when out, and I was left staring at my own reflection in the glass.

The blood didn't make me look any less savage.

At all.


	11. 10: The Sun on the Horizon

Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

Maybe I shouldn't be here.

Maybe they'll find out.

I can't sleep. They gave me a mattress, which smells kind of like gas, and and an old blanket, which is better than I'm used to, but I still can't let my head shut up enough for me to calm down.

Russ said we're moving out tomorrow, since his arm is feeling better and 'We apparently have a fuckin' copotent human being this time around.' He sounded mad when he said that. I'm still not sure why.

It's too loud, too. Travis is making noise while he's sleeping- like a kind of a growl, but it's with every breath as he sleeps, like _grrrn-hck,_ and it puts me on edge. The heater (Bessie? Why would he name something that isn't alive?) is rattling, and the wind shakes the boards in the windows.

When it was just me, I would sleep in the little spaces. Closets, cupboards, places that smelled all like chemicals and made me sneeze but kept all the rivals out of my way. The stupider ones- the infected- would sometimes try and get close, and I would run and hide, or fight and claw and bite. Then the taste would be in my mouth for a looooooong time.

I hope I find Savannah soon.

Russ and Eve are standing on watch. (Which I think means looking for infected. They're not actually standing on anything.) They talk to each other, quietly so that they don't think I can hear it, but I can a little anyways through all the other noise.

"- can't see why you picked up a scrawny little brat like him, Eve, and I know we need backup, but did you really have to go with the first non-infected thing you saw running around this dump?"

"It's better than nothing, Russ." she replies. "There's not much hope for evac in any case."

"You know how I feel about the borders."

"I was there when we saw it, and I know just as well as you that it isn't safe."

"Damn straight."

"It's not like hiking all the way to South Carolina is gonna give us more of a chance."

"Whatever." Russ says. "We're getting off-topic. What do we do about the kid?"

I hear Eve shrug, because the coat she's wearing makes a _ssshk_ noise when she moves her shoulders. "We haven't run into any survivors for weeks, carriers or no, and anything that moves out there, as far I can tell, is a zombie." She stops. "I do have my doubts, though," she says, quieter,

"Yeah?"

"It's like he has brain damage. The way he stops after each word… like he has to think, just to talk."

"Or he has something to hide." Russ adds.

Eve is quiet for a moment.

"I suppose we all have something to hide."

Russ sniffs. "Yeah, well, secrets isn't gonna get him far here."

"What could it be? Raiders? Robbers? We don't have much they could want. We're scraping by as it is."

"They'll take anything," he says. "Guns, clothes, wom-"

"I get the picture."

"But I don't think it's raiders. Something worse, maybe."

"How can you tell? And what could be worse?"

Russ shrugs, too, but it isn't as rustley. "Call it a gut feeling. There's something about him that puts me on edge."

When he says that, I feel all prickly, like I should get up and run.

Eve sighs. "I know you're being paranoid, but then again, I know your gut's never wrong."

"It wasn't that one time."

They're quiet again, and they don't talk for awhile. All I can hear is Travis growling and the heater grumbling.

I wait.

"Just go with the gut feeling, Russell," Eve says, finally. "We'll watch him."

"Yeah, and when we go out there, we'll take down anything in our way," he growls. "The commons, the chargers, the boomers, the stupid hoodie fuc-"

"Wait." Eve stops him. "Did you hear that?" They both turn to where I'm sleeping.

I didn't feel it until now, but I was squeezing my hand so much the sleeping bag tore, the fabric shredding under my fingers.

I tighten my whole body.

Travis goes _grrn-hck_.

Then, after a long time, they turn back to the door. I relax.

"Probably the wind," Eve says, but she sounds worried. "But let's keep low for now."

Russ nods, and they don't talk anymore.

Travis still growls. The heater thing is still going. But it feels like there's not enough going on. My head is buzzing with questions.

I wish it wasn't so quiet.

* * *

Travis and I take watch awhile later. I didn't get much sleep, but I don't say anything about it.

He doesn't talk as much as Russ did, but he does ask me one question, once the others are asleep.

"Where did you come from?"

I don't know what to say. Something that he can't ask me too much about.

"North. Uh, from Maine."

I wait for him to ask more questions, but he _hmphs_ and turns away. "Trees and cold. That's all there is to it," he says.

"Um." I say. "Yeah."

Then we don't say anything for the rest of the night.

* * *

Russ wakes up first, when all the parts outside are getting lighter and it's coming in through the boards on the windows.

"About damn time." Travis says, looking over, and Eve is up next. She goes to one of the cupboards and starts doing something with some water and brown powder.

Soon, she hands me a cup of dark stuff that smells really strong.

"I'm afraid you'll have to take it black." she says. "We're all out of powdered creamer. Are you ok with that?"

I sniff it. It doesn't smell poisonous, but I haven't seen anything like it before.

I take a sip.

UGH! HORRIBLE! It burns my tongue and my mouth and even when I spit it out, the awful bitter taste is still there.

"I'll take that as a no," says Eve, and she looks a little mad at me. Travis is laughing in the corner, quietly so she can't hear.

Russ takes a cup (Why? I don't know) and is looking at a map on the table. There's a bunch of red lines on it.

"We're moving out as soon as we're done here," says Eve, who's drinking the dark stuff, too. "Russ's arm isn't fully healed yet, but if we stay here any longer, he'll either go crazy or we'll starve to death."

"How did he hurt it?" I ask. She seems to think a bit.

"An incident. Charg-uh, one of those big arm things threw him at a wall. Man, it was huge," she says, shaking her head. "Took a full M16 to take it down. Russ is probably lucky to get off with a broken radius."

 _Ow._ I think. _Maybe that's why he's so grumpy all the time._

Travis, Eve and Russ all finish drinking the horrible black stuff and start putting on jackets, and loading their guns. Eve starts putting away cans into a bag, and Travis rolls up the map.

I don't have anything with me, so I wait.

Russ looks over at me watching them.

"Do you know how to shoot, kid?"

I shake my head..

" _Goddamn_." he says, quietly, shaking his head. "How you managed to survive out there is beyond me."

He turns around and grabs something from off the table.

"We don't have much to spare, anyways, so you'll have to make do with this."

He hands me what Marcy once told me was a _Tactical Collapsible Entrenching Tool_. She kept one in the cabin- it folded up and had a different, shorter name, I think. A-

"A shovel." Travis says, looking at me holding it. "We're about to go into zombie-infested territory, where we have no idea what we might run into, and you give the kid a darn blunt _shovel_?"

Russ shrugs. "If he managed to live out there without even a pair of brass knuckles, then a shovel's an improvement. Besides, if you're so worried, why don't _you_ lend him something? I'm sure you have a carbine to spare."

Travis makes an angry noise. "There's no point in being so hard on him," He mutters, but he still holds on to his gun.

"Anything else?" Russ calls, looking around. I hold on to the shovel. Eve puts on her bag and nods. Travis grunts.

He has the thing- Betsy, that's what he named it- strapped to his back, which makes him smell even more like gas.

The room seems emptier now.

Russ looks one more time, and he nods.

"Right then. Get your shit packed. Let's roll."


	12. 11: The Party Starts

It's bright and cold out, and when we step outside I sneeze from the cold and the light. I want to pull up my hood because my eyes hurt, but I remember what Travis told me yesterday and I keep it down.

Everyone has their guns up, looking around quickly and listening, but I don't hear or smell anything coming.

"We're hitting southeast from here," Russ says, more quiet than he is inside. He's holding his hurt arm carefully. Eve took it out of the sling but it's still wrapped up, and I can still smell the pain on him when he uses it.

"I want to get out this godforsaken city before anything else. There should be a safe house ahead, about 10 miles from here. It's not too far, but we can't count on the roads, and keep an eye out for any… _issues_."

"Right," Eve says. Travis and I nod; I forget how much 10 miles is, but I can walk far.

The other two start to walk ahead, but Russ stops me with his hand before I can go.

"Wait."

Then, with his arm that isn't hurt, he shoves me- _hard -_ against the wall, and he smells like the hunt, like he's going for the kill, and his eyes are dark and shiny and looking at me.

His gun is next to my head. I think like I've felt this before.

I stay still, and I can feel the _thd thd thd thd_ in my chest,

"Put on all the act you want you want, pipsqueak," he growls, and I have to make myself not growl back.

"The other two might have fell for your little sob story, but I sure as hell didn't. And if I had it my way, you'd be dead. But with the way that the dice are rolling, you're apparently more use to use to us alive, so you stay. For now." He presses the gun a little harder to my head, so much that it hurts.

"I know you're hiding something, and I know you aren't gonna squeal about it. Right?"

I can't do anything but gulp, and stare into those scary eyes. He squints.

"Here's the deal: you stay where I can see you. Got it?"

I nod, carefully.

"And if you even _try_ to pull any shit on us, or you don't pull your weight, or if I see any funny business, I _will_ find some way to separate your head from your body in the quickest and most painful way I can think of, because I'd hate to waste any ammo on a little fucker like you. Understand?"

Nodnodnodnod. My chest thumps so loud that it hurts.

 _Thddathdaathdathdda_ ….

"Good."

He lets go of me, and pulls the gun away from my head. I lean against the wall, all shaky,my chest still thudding. Russ snorts. "Catch up with the others. And you're ahead of me. No trailing behind"

I nod, again, and run over to Eve and Travis around the corner. I don't think they heard anything, but I still keep away from them and Russ a little more now.

I think today is going to be a long day.

I walk next to Travis.

Russ is in the back, watching, while I hold on tight to the shovel. I don't know what to do with it if something happens, but I know I can't claw or bite.

The cold stings my nose and my face, but I don't say anything. No one says anything, and we just walk on the frozen hard stuff ice. Looking, listening. Listening so hard that my ears almost hurt.

Everyone smells nervous.

We walk. We walk and walk and walk, sometimes we stop if we see something move far away or if there's a sound, but it's a bird or some snow falling off a roof, or Russ pointing where to go.

There's lots of dead on the ground. Sometimes it's just one or some, but other times it's a big pile with brown on the snow around them, I can't smell them now, but I remember, on the warm days when it was just me, there was stink everywhere. Even in the closets, when it smelled like chemicals and dust, I could still smell them. Everywhere.

I'm glad it's cold today.

We walk some more. Eve and Travis step over the bodies, but sometimes there's too many and nowhere to walk and I'll step on an arm, and it'll go _crrrnch_.

I wish I could be on the roofs, right now.

After we walk for a long time there's less buildings, and more trees and houses and less bodies. There's less nervous smell, and I let go of the shovel a tiny little bit. I was holding it really tight.

It's quiet.

Then I hear something.

It's a little noise, and it's far away, but it doesn't sound like wind or snow or birds. It's scraping, heavy on the ice, and it stops sometimes, with a little growl.

Not a rival growl, but I've heard it before.

An infected growl. The stupid kind.

I smell it, too. The wind is coming at me and there's _sick_ , _pain_ , _dying_ , _angry_ in it.

I can't see it, but it's getting close.

I stop.

The others keep walking, but they stop too when they see me.

"Something wrong?" Eve asks, very quiet.

Travis _hmphs_. "We can take a break later, kid." he says.

Russ doesn't say anything. He just watches me.

 _No funny business..._

"Uh. Guys." I say. "There's something. Up ahead. I think."

My voice hurts, maybe because I haven't said anything in a long time, or maybe because it's cold.

Eve shakes her head. "Denver, I don't see or hear anything. We should keep mo-"

" _Listen_. Please. I really think something is coming."

They all stop, and try to hear. I wait.

The shuffling is getting closer, but I don't think they hear it.

I wait more. After awhile, Travis sights.

"Kid, I think you might've mishe-"

Then there's a growl.

The infected comes around the corner. It's gray and thin, and the stench of _sick_ and _rot_ and _dead_ is everywhere.

Its face has many spots of black on it, like a dead black. There's a hole kind of thing where the nose is, and some of its fingers are gone- just stumps of black.

Marcy told me about this. It's frostbite, when it's so cold that you freeze and the flesh is dead and falls off. It's been outside for a long time, I think.

Then it sees us, and it runs.

I can't remember thinking, or being scared or anything. Just the smell, and the eyes and the hands and everything else that's black and dead.

Then Russ holds up the gun and shoots.

It's three times, _bangbangbang_ in the chest, all red and black before it falls down dead. I have to make myself stand and not hold my hands over my ears, which are going _eeeeeeeeee_ and hurt, alot, from the sound.

"Nice shot." says Eve. She sounds all echoey and far away even though she's right next to me.

"Least it was only one," says Travis, but Russ shakes his head.

"There's gonna be more coming this way. We'd better move."

Then I hear a scream, and it's everywhere.

"Ah, _sugar_."

"Fuck in a can!"

" _¡Me cago en ná!_

"Uh…"

They come, running, screaming _aoooooooooo_ and climbing over walls, falling from roofs, out windows and doors and hidden places. Some of them slip on the ice and the others run over it but they get back up again, still screaming and growling and coming at us.

Travis hits the first one. It's pale and doesn't have as many black parts but I can still smell the dead on it, and goes straight at him until he hits it, _bang_ in the head and it falls.

The rest run right after, and Eve and Russ shoot. The sounds of the guns make my chest thud and my head rings, and I almost miss the one running right at me.

I swing the shovel.

It hits it right in the head, and it explodes, pink and grey spraying everywhere and landing on me, and now all I can smell is blood.

"Nice thwack, kid," says Travis, and he shoves an infected towards me. "Reloading!" he calls out.

I hit that one with the shovel too, and even though it doesn't explode it hit the ground with a _crnch_.

They keep coming, and I don't even stop to think anymore. All I can hear are the screams and the shots, or the others yelling out 'Reloading!"

And when my shovel hits something.

Everything becomes a thing I do. _Swing_ , _hit_ , _kick_ , _smell of blood, punch_ ….

It's all red, and the guns rattle, _bangabangbangabang_ like my chest, like my head.

Then it's over. The last one Russ shoots and it falls, on a pile all around us with the rest, and the silence after is so loud my ears ring.

Eve wipes her forehead. "Damn, I thought we weren't going to make it through that one. They all came out of nowhere!" She turns to me and smiles.

"Nice fighting there, kid _._ "

"Thanks." I say. My head is hurting, and I can't think past the buzzing in my ears and the smell of blood.

Travis hits me on the back. "I knew you'd make a good addition!" he says. "You're a real credit to the team! Right, Russ?"

Russ is watching me closely. He narrows his eyes.

"How were you able to hear that first one?"

"Eh?" I say. The first one?

"You know. The first infected. The one none of us was able see, or hear."

 _Lie_ , I think, but I can't think of a good reason.

"Uh. It heard it screaming. Uh. Far away."

Russ doesn't believe me. I can smell it on him, but before he does anything Eve steps in front.

"We can discuss this at the safe house," she says, and Travis nods with her. "Let's keep moving so _this_ -" she points to the bodies- "Doesn't happen again."

Russ grunts, but he doesn't look like he's going to argue. "Right."

He still sounds mad.

Eve and Travis start walking, and I run to catch up with them. I know Russ is behind me, but I don't look back to see.

I hope the rest of the day is quiet.

* * *

Russell watched as the other two of the team walked ahead, the newcomer trailing behind them in earnest.

He said nothing, simply observing as his breath hung in the cold air.

He contemplated, in silence, how scrawny the kid looked; certainly not enough to put up a good fight, at first glance.

 _Hell, give him a Beretta_ , he thought to himself, _and the kickback alone would probably knock the punk over._

He looked down at the bodies, splayed in various awkward positions, riddled with bulletholes and frostbite marks. Nowadays, they looked more like the zombies in the movies than actual living things. _Not that they were really living when we shot them_ , he reflected.

One body was different. It had fallen back, spreadeagled, as though knocked down by some massive force.

He crouched down to inspect the damage. The face was caved in, enough to make a sizeable dent, though the hole wasn't in the flat shape of a shovel. It was more rounded. Deeper.

Like a fist.

A single punch that killed it.

Russ said nothing. He only took in the scene around him. Thinking.

Always thinking. And watching.

Then he rose, turned, and followed the others.


	13. 12: Impressions

The group was silent was they made their way across the roads, past houses collapsed under snow and streets left unplowed, the ice building up under the onslaught of drifts and left slick by the weak sun.

Even when they stopped in an old gas station for a break and MRE's (which made the kid stare at the wall, for some reason) they said nothing. They were quiet, save an occasional grunt or muttered command, as they picked their way over a highway filled with cars going to nowhere, their occupants strapped and frozen to the sears, or the windows stained and encrusted with old blood.

They were quiet as the city turned into suburbs, and as the cars became less and less frequent on the roads.

And they were especially quiet as they heard a weeping wail in a rainwater ditch beside the parkway, the inhuman cries echoing down the way and carrying on the wind long after they passed the source.

When they eventually reached the safehouse, however, everyone stumbling into a small office room located in god-knew-where, Ohio, it was Travis that broke the silence.

"Lord in Heaven, _finally_."

A collective sigh of relief of breathed (Even by Russ) and the setup of camp commenced.

Travis hauled Betsy off his back and fiddled with it, filling the room with the smell of gas (which made Denver sputter) and, after awhile, a tentative kind of heat. Eve retrieved various medical supplies from her pack, and Russ rolled out his maps.

Denver was tasked with scrounging for food, and an expedition through the cupboards revealed were some candles, rock hard and sooty, and a couple of dented, frozen cans of beans.

"A deadly combination," joked Eve when she saw the pile, but the comment seemed to fly over the kid's head, and she called it a loss, going back to her task of unpacking.

Though everyone had kept their guns slung to their backs, Denver's shovel lay, forlorn looking, on the table, the blade crusted with blood and god-knew-what. She cringed, inwardly, at the unsanitary practice of leaving it on top of an eating table, and made a mental note to chew him out, and not use that particular spot for preparing food. _Yuck._

As she grabbed the spade, and noted, for all the action it had gone through, it didn't look too worse for wear. A few dents here and there, but it was otherwise intact, right down to the finger-ridges on the handle-

Wait. Had they always been there?

The handle, sure enough, seemed to be molded to a hand, but she could have sworn that the metal had been smooth and straight befo-

"Hey, Eve, can you look at this?"

Travis interrupted her thoughts, and she turned away from the table. Russ has taken the sling off, and was moving his wrist around experimentally.

"It feels OK, but I think it might be a little swollen," he said, gruffly, though not unkindly.

Eve sighed. _No hay paz para los_ _pecadores_ _._ She put down the shovel and turned her mind to other topics; there were more important things to think about, after all.

* * *

Travis and Denver had watch again for the night, first shift. Betsy managed to make the space bearable, if a little gasoline-fumey, the quiet hum filling the room. The night was silent, and Travis figured there would be little issue from the zombies.

Feeling a need, he pulled a certain metal flask deep from within the recesses of his coat, unscrewing the cap as he glanced, furtively, at the sleeping forms of Eve and Russ, and then back at the kid, who was watching with quiet disinterest, shovel in hand.

"You mind?" he asked, shaking the flask.

The kid sniffed- he'd been doing that all day, perhaps he had a cold- and shrugged, turning to the window.

Travis took this as a confirmation, and swigged the bottle.

"Thanks." He said, capping the container and stowing it away once again with care.

"Heh. I swore off this stuff when I came clean four years ago, but Lord knows I need some after today."

Denver didn't reply. Though his face was pointed towards the window, his gaze seemed unfocused.

Travis turned to face him.

"You're not much of a talker, are ya?"

Denver once again shrugged. "Yeah."

"So you like talking?"

He stiffened. "Uh, I mean, what I was saying was-"

"You don't?"

"Y- I mean, I don't like talking. Sorry."

"It's alright."

"...thanks." Despite his sallow skin, there was a faint redness to his face now.

There was a stretch of silence. Then:

"Got something on your mind?"

Denver seemed to hesitate before answering. "I guess."

"The person you're looking for?"

There was no reply. Travis gave him a knowing look.

"What's she like?"

There was a soft sound of surprise, and Denver turned to Travis, eyes wide.

"How do you know?"

Travis chuckled again. "There's signs, if you know what to look for. Miss her?"

He nodded.

"It's been… awhile since I've seen her."

"How'd you get split up?"

He appeared to hesitate, staring at the window again with a look of conflict on his face.

"CEDA." He said, simply. "I don't know where she is right now, but Whitaker-"

"You're still going to try and find him?"

"Yeah."

"You know what we told you about him. They don't call him 'Crazy Whitaker' for nothing."

"I'm still gonna look for him."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"You're nuts." He shook his head in disbelief, and then thought for a moment.

"You must really care about this girl."

The kid exhaled in a gentle, and stared into the distance.

"I do."

"Why?"

Denver, glanced down at his hands, which had remained gloved since Travis had first seen him, oddly enough.

"I think she would have done the same for me."

"You think so?"

There was a pause, and a look of conflict once again clouded his face.

"When we first met…" he started, seeming to pick his words carefully, "She… helped me out. When she could have let me die. But she saved me. My life. When she didn't have to. So I think it's my turn now. And…"

He paused. "She's all I have. My only family, kinda."

"So you're gonna find her?"

"I have to."

Travis scoffed, softly. "There's never such a thing as _have to_ , kid. I know she might be all you've got or what have you, but it's a snipe hunt you've got going there. And while I don't think I can pull you away from it, please at least consider hard darn _impossible_ it is."

Denver gripped the shovel, hard, so much that the metal creaked. "I know she's out there. And I know that she's alive, and that if I find Whitaker, then he can help me."

"And if you can't find him? Or he doesn't help you? Or he turns you into a red splat on the ground with a rocket launcher because you're thinking of negotiating with a lunatic?"

He shrugged. "I'm gonna try. It's all I can do."

Travis raised an eyebrow. "Your funeral." After a moment, he added,

"If you find her, God willing, I hope she's worth it."

"I will." Denver replied, quietly, but his voice edged with steel, almost in a feral growl.

"I'm gonna find her."


	14. 13 The Void Stares Back

_It was an awfully bright morning, and the sunlight hitting over the buildings nearly blinded the figure standing above. He blocked out the offending rays with his arm, and squinted down at the smallish-looking figure of Bass Mouth, who was standing in an alley below, holding an ancient video camera and peering up towards the roof._

" _Are you sure about this, Den?" he called from below, his voice echoing up the walls of the gap. "It's a heck of a jump!"_

" _Positive!" Yells the figure on the roof, holding up an ungloved hand to his mouth as he yells down. "If Belle can do it, I can!"_

 _He's actually scared, fear pooling in his stomach and chest as he looks at the darkness in between roofs, making him clench his fists in anticipation. It is, however, the good kind of scared. The kind that got your heart beating and the blood pumping and the air filling your lungs._

 _The kind of fear that made you feel alive._

 _He took a deep breath, the morning air still cool._

" _I'm ready when you are, Seb."_

" _Cam's running." Bass Mouth replied. "I'm ready when you are. Lett'r rip."_

 _Denver took another deep breath, and carefully backed away from the ledge, the darkness of the gap looming like a void in the blazing white reflection of the rooftops._

 _He stared at the void._

 _The void stared back._

 _Then, he ran, shoes slapping the pavement, and then there was the ledge- a push off, a kick, and he_ _flew_ _._

 _And then it warped. He was still flying, but there was no roof or camera or sunshine. Only void, and something,_ someone _below him, human shaped and screaming, falling, his_ _hands_ _claws were out and the smell of blood, of sick…_

 _Then it wasn't a person under him- something bigger, hairier,_ angrier _, with foam and teeth and claws even bigger than his, snapping and roaring and tossing…_

 _Bite_ _tear_ kill _swipe_

* * *

I wake up.

It's been awhile since I remembered something. I try to think about everything that happened, but it feels like it's leaving me…

 _Bass Mouth...roof..camera...bear..._ It's all just noise.

Even though my mattress is far away from Betsy, I feel hot. My coat is soaked in sweat, and my hands shake.

It's morning, but the sun isn't out. The sky is just all grey.

"Look who's up."

It's Travis, and he's sitting at the map table with Russ, who still looks sleepy.

"You were snoring like all heck last night, kid," he says, looking at the maps. "Do you have a cold or something? I coulda thought that there was a bear in the room."

I feel my face getting hot, and I cough a little. "Yeah. It's a cold," I say, turning away from him.

Eve is up, too, and she hands me a can of beans. "We're not heading out straight away," she tells me, while I grab a fork. "The boys are looking for a different route."

"Different route?" I ask. We already went really slow yesterday. When it was just me, I would go wherever I wanted. I didn't plan.

 _But I also didn't know where I was going._ I tell myself.

Eve nods. "They're trying to find the best route to avoid another horde."

"Horde?"

"Big bunch of zombies. The one we hit yesterday was a bit of a surprise, it ate through a good amount of our ammo supply."

"Why was it a surprise?"

She shrugs. "I suppose we were a little spoiled, in the last town. We cleared out most of the area, and hadn't had any runs-ins for awhile."

She pauses. "That, and, well, we thought the rest might have died off."

"Died off?"

"We figured that dehydration would kill them, or, failing that, the cold. I have to say, most of them looked like shit-, though I'm surprised there were so many left kicking."

I finish the beans. It's not much, but I can't ask for more. There aren't very many cans with us.

 _Maybe we'll find some more in the next safe room,_ I think. It doesn't change the empty feeling in my stomach.

"We're moving, folks," says Russ. I put the can down and grab my shovel.

"Looks like we might get some weather, so we need to move fast." he adds. The others nod. It takes a little while to pack up, but we're outside soon. I'm glad it's not as bright, but the air smells heavier, like cold and water and a little metal.

"It's a storm for sure," says Travis, looking up. "The old knees are getting creaky."

"Your knees are right," says Eve, "I don't like the look of those clouds."

"My arm's feeling the same way, too." Russ says. "Let's get going."

He walks, faster than any of us, and I almost run to catch up. It's hard not to slip on the ice. I don't hear anything, so I keep my shovel down.

Eve walks next to me, looking a little annoyed.

"That man," she says to me, looking at Russ. "Is either going to kill himself or us, I don't know which first. He really shouldn't be pushing himself so."

Russ doesn't say anything, but I think he heard, because he slows down a little. Travis behind us, huffing and breathing hard and going all red in the face.

"How far is the next room from here?" Eve asks.

"15 miles, tops," Travis pants. "It's shorter, and it's over highway so that it's faster. We don't have any backup if we get caught in a storm, so…"

"I get the idea." Eve replies.

We keep walking.

After a while, white stuff starts falling from the sky. It smells wet and cold, and it makes a tiny _fffff_ noise when it hits the ground. I stop and watch.

"Denver?" Eve calls.

I look away. _Better catch up._

Eve laughs when she sees me. "Never seen snow before?" she asks.

I shake my head. Marcy talks about it from her survival books, but she doesn't seem to like it. Mostly it's stuff about _hypothermia_ and _impeded movement_ and _constructed insulated dwelling_.

I like looking at it fall down. It makes me feel happy. I don't know why.

" _...taking L sledding. Yeah, mom, we'll be back before dark, it's just at deKoevend…"_

"Are you sure you've never seen snow before?" Eve says. "You look like the one time my cousin from Ponce visited for Christmas. Eyes as big as soup pans, he thought it was magic."

"Yeah." I say. I'm not really paying attention. I'm too busy thinking.

She keeps talking. "It was so simple back then, not having to worry about- this. All this... _coño_." she waves her arm at the cars in the street, all the old houses with the windows broken, everything.

We walk walking. She sighs again.

"We've all lost something because of the Flu." she says, quietly.

"Everyone?" I ask.

She nods. "Travis… he had a daughter and a granddaughter. The town they were in- it was overrun. He couldn't get to them in time. He never even saw the bodies. Russ, he lost Skip."

"What about you?"

She pauses. "My husband."

She smells sad, and I don't think I should ask any more, but she keeps going.

"I had just come home from work." she says. "When I left, he was so worried about me and the flu, since I worked at the hospital… but I told him it was just a scare, and it would blow over. I kissed him goodbye, and when I came back…"

She pauses again. "He was gone. Infected, fully. Tried attacking me, I locked myself in the basement, got the shotgun, and…"

She stops. I smell a tiny bit of saltwater, and the scent of hurt.

 _Stupid._ I think. I shouldn't have asked...

"I'm sorry." I say. I don't know what else to, but it feels like I need to say it.

She gives me a little smile, though it doesn't look happy. "Thank you." she says. "Though you don't need to apologize. It's not like you infected them, but… thank you."

"Is it..." I start. "Hard? Losing someone?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't it be?"

She pauses. "We all… cope with it differently. It took me awhile to get over Alex, and I still don't think I'm over it, or ever will be. The first weeks were.. _.hard."_ She makes a face like she's in pain. "It was just me, alone, for some time. My town was overrun soon after that, and I tried holding it out in my house. I thought it would be over in a few weeks. But then, _they_ came. The horrible ones."

She waves her hands. "You know. The mutated ones. The ones that spit acid like fire, or the little laughing ones that ride you like a mule. The ones that jump at you, screaming and clawing-"

"Hunters?" I ask. My hands and back feel all prickly, suddenly.

She nods. "We all had our own names for them, when we met, Travis, Russ, Skip and I. The Witches, those white crying ones, I called _la llorona_ , after an old child's tale. Travis would call them _Rebeccas_ , because he said they reminded him of his ex-wife." She snorts.

"Skip, he had _lots_ of names for them… but I won't tell you, because he cursed like a sailor, that boy. Good old Skip…"

She stops, and thinks some more. "We all started calling them after the names the graffiti said, it was just easier, not as confusing-"

"Graffiti?"

"The writing on the walls of the saferooms."

"Oh."

"Anyways, after they came, staying in one place became impossible. They just kept _attacking, attacking…_ I thought I was going to die, but I managed to escape in the night over the roof, and get to a saferoom. It was too late for an evac, of course," she says, shaking her head. "So I was pretty much screwed _,_ at least until Skip and Russ found me. They nearly shot me, too, because I looked like _la_ _llorona_ , I was so starved. We picked up Travis a few days later, hiding in his old squad's firehouse in Fort Wayne. The rest is history. We're going to Charleston, by hook or by crook."

I think of something. "Why not go to the borders?" I ask. "There's no flu over the river. They have a vaccine."

Eve shakes her head, laughing softly, but it doesn't sound happy. "It might be zombie free over the Mississippi, kid, but what they have on the West side is much, much worse."

"What do you mean?"

She stop waking, and turns to me. "The military! Are you blind? Have you even read the writing on the wall?" She's shaking, angry smelling- almost yelling. "The bodies? Do you even know what they _do_ to _us_? Survivors? Carriers?"

"They murder them. Right where they stand."


End file.
